SALIENT FEATURES OF INDIAN SOCIETY

● Indian society is an exemplification of multicultural, multi-ethnic and

multi-ideological constructs, which co-exist, at once striving to strike harmony and
also to retain its individuality.
● Based on the generous concept of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (the world is one
family), Indian society possesses a great cultural heritage.
Characteristics of Indian Society
● Multi-ethnic society
● Multilingual society - Across the length and breadth of the country, more than 1600
languages are spoken. The age-old line “kos kos par pani badle, char kos pe vani”
reflects the similar diversity found in terms of linguistic patterns that flow across the
country like the flow of rivers.
● Multi-class and caste society
● Patriarchal society
● Unity in diversity
● Co-existence of traditionalism and modernity
● Balance between spiritualism and materialism
● Balance between Individualism and collectivism
● Blood and kinship ties
Features of Indian Society
Caste System
1. Caste System : features of caste system in India
a. Segmental division of society : Membership to a caste group is acquired by
birth
b. Hierarchy: It indicates that various castes are categorized according to their
purity and impurity of occupations.
c. Civil and religious disabilities: These comprise restrictions based on
contact, dress, speech, rituals etc. and are placed on every caste group.
d. Endogamy
e. Untouchability
f. Manual scavenging : Manual scavenging eventually became a caste-based
occupation
g. Caste based violence in India : Increasing trend of caste based violence are
related to instances of inter-caste marriage and assertion of basic rights by
Dalits. E.g, Bhima-Koregaon Violence, Una flogging, Hathras Case
h. Policy of caste based reservation : The system of caste-based reservation
in India comprises of a series of affirmative action measures
2. Changes in the Caste system
a. Trends for inter-caste marriage : Purity of blood was one of the main aims
of the caste system. As a result, inter-caste marriages were socially
forbidden. Due to economic and social necessities, inter-caste marriages on
western lines are being performed at increased frequency
b. Challenge to orthodoxy
c. New food habits
d. Changes in occupation
e. Improvement in the position of lower caste

3. Recent Trends In Indian Caste system

a. The caste system in its attempts to adjust itself to the changed conditions of
life has assumed new roles. Besides industrialisation and urbanisation,
other factors such as Westernisation. Sanskritisation, reorganisation of
Indian states, spread of education, socio-religious reforms, spatial and
occupational mobility and growth of market economy have greatly
affected the caste system.
b. Increase in the Organisational Power of Caste : It was expected that with
the growth of literacy in India, caste-mindedness and casteism would
come down. On the contrary, caste-consciousness of the members has
been increasing. Every caste wants to safeguard its interests. For fulfilling
the purpose castes are getting themselves organised on the model of
labour unions. Today every caste wants to organise itself. Such caste
organisations are on the increase. Mainly to cater to the educational,
medical and religious needs of their members. These caste-based
organisations are also trying to project the leadership of some of their
members to serve as their spokesmen. E.g, Barnwal Samiti,
c. Political Role of Caste : Caste and politics have come to affect each other
now. Caste has become an inseparable aspect of our politics. In fact, it is
tightening its hold on politics. Elections are fought more often on the basis of
caste. Selection of candidates, voting analysis, selection of legislative party
leaders, distribution of ministerial portfolios etc., are very much based on
caste. Politics of each state, as M.N. Srinivas says, is virtually the politics of
confrontation of its “dominant castes”. Thus, unless one knows the political
confrontation between the dominant castes such as Ligayats and
Vokkaligas in Karnataka and Reddys and Kammas in Andhra Pradesh,
one cannot understand the politics of these two states. M.N. Srinivas also
makes a distinction between caste at the ritual level and caste at the
political level. Caste at the ritual level is a smaller unit than the caste at the
political level is a larger unit.
d. Protection for Scheduled Castes and other Backward Classes : The
constitution of India has made enough provisions to protect the interests of
Scheduled Castes and Tribes. According to M.N. Srinivas, “The provision of
constitutional safeguards to.... Scheduled Castes and Tribes have given a
new lease of life to caste.” These provisions have made some of them
develop vested interests to reap permanently the benefits of reservation.
They are also tempting many other castes to bring pressure on the
government to declare them as belonging to the category of Scheduled
castes.
e. Sanskritization and Westernisation : As M.N. Srinivas has pointed out, two
important trends are witnessed in caste - the process of Sanskritization and
that of Westernisation. The former refers to a process in which the lower
castes tend to imitate the values, practices and other life-styles of some
dominant upper castes. The latter denotes a process in which the upper-caste
people tend to mould their life-styles on the model of Westerners.
f. Backward Classes Movement : The establishment of ‘Satyashodhak
Samaj’ by Jotirao Phooley in Poona in 1873 marked the beginning of
such a non- Brahmin movement. This movement against the Brahmin
supremacy by the lower castes came to be known as Backward Classes
 Movement. The Backward Classes Movement has become a vital political
force today.
g. Competitive Role of Castes : Mutual interdependence of castes which
existed for centuries and was reinforced by the institutional system of
“jajmani”, is not found today. As M.N. Srinivas points out, the “vertical
solidarity” of castes has been replaced by “horizontal solidarity”. The
economic base of a caste and its hold over the political power virtually
determine the intensity of this competitiveness. This competitive spirit further
strengthens caste-mindedness.
h. New attempts to strengthen caste-loyalty, caste-identity,
caste-patriotism and caste- mindedness : Though Caste Panchayats are
dwindling, caste organisations are on the increase. Some of these
organisations have their own written constitutions and managing
committees through which they try to preserve some of the caste rules and
practices. Caste organisations run their own papers, bulletins, periodicals,
monthlies etc. through which they regularly feed information to the members
regarding |the activities of caste organizations and achievements of
caste-members. They offer scholarships to the poor students of the caste.
Some of them run schools, colleges, hostels, maternity-homes for caste
members and so on. The occupational castes are making determined efforts
to improve the economic conditions of caste members by establishing
cooperative credit and industrial societies.
4. CAUSES FOR THE CHANGES IN CASTE SYSTEM
a. Uniform Legal System : The uniform legal system introduced by the
British made the Indians feel that “all men are equal before the law” A
number of legislations which the British introduced also struck at the root of
the caste system. The Constitution of India has not only assured equality to
all but also declared the practice of untouchability unlawful [Articles 15 and
16].
b. Impact of Modern Education. The British introduced modern secular
education in a uniform way throughout India. In independent India educational
facilities are extended to all the caste people.
c. Industrialisation, Urbanisation and Westernisation : Due to the process of
industrialisation a number of non-agricultural job opportunities were created.
This new economic opportunity weakened the hold of the upper castes
people who owned vast lands. People of different castes, classes and
religions started working together in factories, offices, workshops etc.
d. Influence of Modern Transport and Communication System : Modern
means of communication, such as newspapers, post, telegraph, telephone,
radio, television etc., have helped people to come out of the narrow world of
caste.
e. Freedom Struggle and the Establishment of Democracy
f. Rise of Non-Brahmin Movement
g. Social Legislations
h. Social Reform Movements
i. Impact of the West
 j. Threat of Conversion. Social disabilities imposed on the lower castes made
some of them to get themselves converted to either Christianity or Islam.
Pressure tactics and temptations further added to this conversion process.
k. Improvement in the Status of Women, Evolution of New Social Classes

Changes in Caste System : Sanskritization, Westernization and Modernization

SANSKRITISATION
introduced into Indian Sociology by Prof. M.N. Srinivas. The term refers to a process
whereby people of lower castes collectively try to adopt upper caste practices and beliefs, as
a preliminary step to acquire higher status. a process of cultural mobility. In Coorg in
Karnataka, he found that lower castes gave up meat-eating, drinking liquor and animal
sacrifice to their deities. The lower castes imitated not only Brahmins but also Kshatriyas,
Vaishyas, Jats, Shudras, etc. in different parts of the country. Sanskritization is a much
broader concept than Brahminization.
WESTERNISATION
Changes that have taken place in the Indian society and culture due to the Western contact
through the British rule. and the term subsumes changes occurring at different levels -
technology, institutions, ideology, values . describes the technological changes,
establishment of educational institutions, rise of nationalism and new political culture, etc. as
almost the by-products of Westernisation or the British rule of two hundred years in India.
As Gandhiji wrote in his “Autobiography”, educated Indians undertook the task of'
'becoming English gentlemen in their dress, manners, habits, choices, preferences,
etc.” It included even learning to appreciate Western music and participating in ball dancing.
Western education resulted in a big change in the outlook of those educated.
MAIN FEATURES OF WESTERNISATION
● Westernisation Implies, according to Srinivas, “certain value preferences”. The most
important value, which in turn subsumes several other values, is “humanitarianism”.
It implies “an active concern for the welfare of all human beings irrespective of caste,
economic position, religion, age and sex”. The humanitarian outlook among the
Westernised elite led first to the social reform movement and later on to the
independence movement.
● Westernisation not only includes the introduction of new institutions (for example,
newspapers, elections, Christian missionaries) but also fundamental changes
in old institutions.
● The form and pace of Westernisation of India varied from region to region and from
one section of population to another. For example, one group of people became
Westernised in their dress, diet, manners, speech, sports and in the gadgets
they used. While another absorbed Western science, knowledge and literature,
remaining relatively free from certain other aspects Westernisation.
● “In the political and cultural fields, Westernisation has given birth not only to
nationalism but also to revivalism, communalism, ‘casteism’, heightened
linguistic consciousness, and regionalism.
MODERNISATION
Modernisation” is understood as a process which indicates the adoption of the modern ways
of life and values”. Modernisation is understood as an attempt, on the part of the people,
particularly those who are custom-bound, to adopt themselves to the present time,
conditions, styles, and ways in general. It indicates a change in people's food habits, dress
habits, speaking styles, tastes, choices, preferences, ideas, values, recreational facilities and
so on. The scientific and technological inventions have brought about remarkable
changes in the whole system of social relationship and installed new ideologies in the
place of traditional ones.
Modernisation includes – “a temple of science, reason and rationalism, secularism, high
aspiration and achievement orientation, overall transformation of attitudes norms and
values, creation of new functional institutions, investment In human resources, a
growth oriented economy, a national interest rather than kin, caste, religion, region or
language oriented interests, an open society, and a mobile person”
5. Factors Affecting the Changes in Caste System
a. Sanskritisation
b. Westernisation
c. Modernisation: It is a process which primarily relies on scientific outlook,
rational attitudes, high social mobility, mass mobilisation and
specialisation in work.
d. Industrialisation and urbanisation
e. Democratic decentralisation
f. Caste and politics
g. Constitutional & Legislative measures : Untouchability (offences) Act, 1955

Religious Pluralism
● Different Religious Groups in India : India is a secular country comprising various
religions of the world, which are further subdivided into several sects and cults.
Religion in India is characterized by a diversity of religious beliefs and practices.
The Indian subcontinent is the birthplace of four world religions—Hinduism,
Buddhism, Sikhism and Jainism.
● Kinship, Marriage and Family
○ Kinship system refers to a set of persons recognized as relatives either
by virtue of a blood relationship or by virtue of a marriage relationship.
○ The Kinship system represents one of the basic social institutions. Kinship
is universal and in most societies plays a significant role in the
socialisation of individuals and the maintenance of group solidarity.
○ Regional differences regarding kinship systems and marriage in North and
South India
○ Marriage is an important social institution. It is a relationship, which is
socially approved and sanctioned by custom and law.
○ Structural and functional changes in the marriage system
■ Changes in the aim and purpose of marriage : today the modern
objective of marriage is more related to ‘life-long companionship’
between husband and wife.
■ Changes in the form of marriage
■ Change in the age of marriage
■ Increase in divorce and desertion rates
■ Live in relationships : They are on a steady growth rate in India
especially among the youth in metropolitan cities. The institution also
has legal recognition as a three judge bench of SC in 2010
observed that a man and a woman living together without
 marriage cannot be construed as an offence and held that living
together is a Right to Life and Liberty (Article 21).
○ Today, marriage is still considered important and necessary, and only few
individuals remain unmarried by choice. Goals of marriage are, however,
undergoing changes especially for the urban and educated sections of the
population. The older notions regarding large size family are being replaced
by preference for small size family. Marriage for self-fulfillment rather than
primarily for procreation or societal welfare is also becoming prevalent.
○ Marriage Structural –Functional Changes.
■ The marriage system had undergone radical changes especially after
independence. Even though the basic religious beliefs associated with
marriage have not crumbled down, many of the practices, customs,
and forms have changed. The recent changes in the marriage system
are briefly discussed here.
■ Changes in the Form of Marriage: the traditional forms of marriages
like polygamy polygyny are not found any were, and they are
legally prohibited in India. Only monogamous marriages are
universally practiced.
■ Changes in the Aim and purpose of Marriage: In traditional
societies the primary objective of marriage is ‘dharma’ or duty;
especially among Hindus. But today the modern objective of marriage
is more related to ‘life-long companionship’ between husband
and wife.
■ Changes in the Processes of mate selection : wide enough to
include inter religious and inter-caste marriages, The practice of
young men and women selecting their life partners by themselves is
becoming popular today. Much importance is given to individual
interests, preferring and considering rather than to family
considerations.
■ As per the present marriage act a boy below 21 years and a girl below
18 years cannot marry.
■ Changes in the stability of marriage : Legislative provision for
divorce has virtually affected the stability of the marriage. The
legislative provisions for divorce and widow remarriage have
undermined the importance of the age old values related to marriage.
■ Changes in the Economic aspect of Marriage : The Practice of
paying dowry is associated with Marriage. This practice has grown
into a big evil today. Bride’s parents are compelled today to pay a
huge amount of money as dowry. This practice made marriage a
costly affair. Marriages are often settled only on considerations of
dowry.
○ Though these new trends are observed today the importance of marriage has
not diminished. it is still universally practiced. Though its sanctity is affected a
little, It is not reduced to the level of a mere civil contract in Indian society.
○ Family in Indian Society
■ The family is the basic unit of society. It is the first and the most
immediate social environment to which a child is exposed. In some
way or the other the family is a universal group. It exists in tribal, rural
 and urban communities and among the followers of all religious and
cultures. It provides the most enduring relationship in one form or
other.
■ Functions of the family : Production and rearing of the child,
Provision of home, Instrument of culture transmission, Agent of
socialization, Status ascribing function, Agency of social control
■ Economic functions : Members are engaged in earning wages for
ensuring socio-economic well-being of the family.
■ Educational functions: Family provides the basis for the child’s
formal learning.
■ Religious functions
■ Structural and functional changes in the Indian family system
■ Changes in family: Family which was a principal unit of production
has been transformed in the consumption unit.
■ Factory employment : It has freed young adults from direct
dependence upon their families. This functional independence of
the youngsters has weakened the authority of the head of the
household over those earning members.
■ Influence of urbanization
■ Legislative measures
■ Changes in marriage system: Changes in the age of marriage,
freedom in mate-selection and change in the attitude towards
marriage
■ Influence of western values: Values relating to modern science,
rationalism, individualism, equality, free life, democracy, freedom
of women etc. have exerted a tremendous change on the joint
family system in India.
■ Changes in the position of women
■ Over the years, various sociologists have affirmed in their studies that
the rise of nuclear families — consisting of a couple and their
unmarried children — is consistent with rapid urbanization.
● Structural and functional changes system of family
○ The system of family has undergone qualitative changes because of
Industrialization, urbanization, migration, revolution in the field of
transport and communication, increasing influence of the state and the
influence of the individualization philosophy of life.
○ Today most of the traditional activities of the family were transferred to
outside agencies; this further weakened the bonds that in the past kept the
family together. There occurred a reduction in the educational,
recreational, religious and protective functions of the family which have
been more or less taken over by various institutions and agencies
created for that purpose.
○ Some of the major changes in the family are discussed below.
■ Changes in family : The family which was a principal unit of
production has been transformed into the consumption unit.
Instead of all members working together in an integrated economic
enterprise, a few male members go out of the home to earn the
family’s living. These affected family relations.
 ■ Factory employment : Factory employment has freed young adults
from direct dependence upon their families. This functional
independence of the youngsters has weakened the authority of the
head of the household over those earning members. In many cities
even women too joined men in working outside the families on
salary basis.
■ changes in social situation : In the changed social situation
children have ceased to be economic assets and Children’s
educational requirements have increased. They are to be
supported for a long time till they get into some good job.
■ Industrialization and Influence of urbanization : urban living
weakens joint family patterns and strengthens nuclear family
patterns.
■ Changes in the Marriage System : Changes in the age of marriage,
freedom in mate-selection and change in the attitude towards
marriage have also affected our family system; parents' role in
mate-selection has diminished. Marriage is not very much
considered a religious affair but only a social ceremony.
■ Legislative Measures : The freedom of mate- selection and marriage
in any caste and religion without the Parent’s consent after a certain
age permitted through the Special Marriage Act, 1954. Other
legislations such as the Widow Remarriage Act, 1856, Hindu
Marriage Act, 1955, Hindu succession Act, 1956, all have modified
interpersonal relations within the family, the composition of the family
and the stability of the joint family.
■ Influence of western values : Influence of western values relating to
modern science, rationalism, individualism, equality, free life,
democracy, freedom of women etc. have exerted a tremendous
change on the joint family system.
■ Awareness among women: Increasing female education,
employment opportunities for women created awareness among the
women. They also sought a chance of becoming “free” from the
authoritarian hold of the joint family.

Diversity in India
● India is a plural society both in letter and spirit. It is rightly characterized by its
unity and diversity. A grand synthesis of cultures, religions and languages of
the people belonging to different castes and communities has upheld its unity
and cohesiveness despite multiple foreign invasions.
● National unity and integrity have been maintained even though sharp
economic and social inequalities have obstructed the emergence of egalitarian
social relations. It is this synthesis which has made India a unique mosque of
cultures.
● Diversity means a variety of races, of religions, of languages, of castes and of
cultures.
● Unity means integration. It is a social psychological condition. It connotes a sense of
one-ness, a sense of we-ness. It stands for the bonds, which hold the members of a
society together.
● Unity in diversity essentially means “unity without uniformity” and “diversity
without fragmentation”. It is based on the notion that diversity enriches human
interaction.
● Various forms of diversity in India
○ Religious diversity
○ Linguistic diversity
○ Racial diversity : Representatives of all the three major races of the world,
namely Caucasoid, Mongoloid, and Negroid, are found in the country.
○ Caste diversity : refer to both varna as well as jati. Varna is the four-fold
division of society according to functional differentiation. Whereas Jati refers
to a hereditary endogamous status group practicing a specific
traditional occupation. There are more than 3000 jatis and there is no
one all India system of ranking them in order and status. The jati system
is not static and there is mobility in the system, through which jatis have
changed their position over years. This system of upward mobility has been
termed as “Sanskritization” by M. N. Srinivas.
○ Cultural diversity
○ Geographical diversity
● Factors Leading to Unity Amidst Diversity in India
○ Constitutional identity : guarantees certain fundamental rights to all citizens
regardless of their age, gender, class, caste, religion, etc.
○ Religious co-existence : Religion tolerance is the unique feature of religions
in India due to which multiple religions coexist in India. Freedom of religion
and religious practice is guaranteed by the Constitution itself. Sab Dharma
Sambhava
○ Inter-State mobility : thus promoting a sense of unity and brotherhood
among the masses.
○ Economic integration
○ Institution of pilgrimage and religious practices : which has always
moved people to various parts of the country and fostered in them a
sense of geo-cultural unity. E.g, Allahabad, Pushkar, Ajmer sharif,
Ujjain, Varanasi,
○ Fairs and festivals : They also act as integrating factors as people from all
parts of the country celebrate them as per their own local customs.
■ Different types of agricultural festivals - Bihu(Assam), Lohri(Punjab),
Pongal, Ugadi, Makar Sankranti
○ Climatic integration via monsoon : The flora and fauna in the entire Indian
subcontinent, agricultural practices, life of people, including their festivities
revolve around the monsoon season in India.
○ Sports and Cinema : These are followed by millions in the country, thus,
acting as a binding force across the length and breadth of India.
● Factors that threaten India’s unity
○ Regionalism
○ Divisive politics : ascriptive identities such as caste, religion etc. are
evoked by politicians in order to garner votes.
○ Development imbalance : Uneven pattern of socio-economic development,
inadequate economic policies and consequent economic disparities can lead
 to backwardness of a region. Consequently, this can result in violence,
kickstart waves of migration and even accelerate demands of separatism.
○ Ethnic differentiation and nativism : often led to clashes between
different ethnic groups especially due to factors such as job competition,
limited resources, threat to identity etc.
○ Geographical isolation: Geographical isolation too can lead to identity
issues and separatist demands. E.g, N-E States secessionist demands
○ Inter-religious conflicts
○ Inter-state conflicts
● In-spite of the challenges posed by diversity, there can be no doubt on the role
played by sociocultural diversity in sustaining and developing Indian society.
● Problem is not of diversity per se, but the handling of diversity in Indian society. The
problems of regionalism, communalism, ethnic conflicts etc. have arisen
because the fruits of development haven’t been distributed equally or the
cultures of some groups haven’t been accorded due recognition.
● Hence, the Constitution and its values must form guiding principles of our society.
Any society which has tried to homogenize itself, has witnessed stagnation in
due-course and ultimately decline. The most important example is this case is of
Pakistan which tried to impose culture on East-Pakistan ultimately leading to creation
of Bangladesh.
● Pluralism is a political philosophy holding that people of different beliefs,
backgrounds, and lifestyles can coexist in the same society and participate equally in
the political process.
● Different cultures are encouraged. Individuals are considered part of collectivities that
provide meaning to their lives. Multiculturalism seeks ways to support these
collectivities. The public sphere is not culturally neutral. Public sphere is an arena for
cultural negotiation. No group should dominate in a way that excludes other cultural
forms.
Features of Indian Society- Rural
Mahatma Gandhi’s view that India lives in villages still holds good, at least from the
demographic point of view.
The village social life has its own peculiar characteristics. The village social life norms
strengthen the authoritarian and hierarchical norms in administration. The village
social life, which is based on the hierarchical exchange relations greatly influence the
behavior of civil servants in public organizations.
It is rightly said ‘India is a country of villages’.
Agriculture is the main occupation of the Indians and majority of people in India live in the
villages. Our villages help in strengthening our social bonds and bringing stability to
our society in many ways. Our villages also help our society in another way namely
that of preserving our culture.
The Indian rural society has undergone considerable change in the recent past, particularly
since the Independence as a result of a series of the land reform legislations that have
accelerated the pace of this change. India has a rich cultural heritage and is a land of
diversities. The diversity in social life is reflected in the multi-social, multi-lingual, multi-
religious and multi-caste nature of the society. The important features of the Indian social
structure are- predominant rural habitation in small villages; multi-religious and
multi-caste social identities and important role of family in the social life.
Major Features of Rural Society
Each society consists of different parts, such as individuals, groups, institutions,
associations, and communities. The simplest analogy one can think of at this point is that
of an organism that has different components working together as a whole.
● Small size of village community, Intimate relations, Jajmani System, Social
homogeneity, Informal Social Control, Dominance of Joint Family, Status of
Rural Women, Occupation, Role of neighborhood, Faith in religion, Self
Sufficiency, Widespread caste system, Conservatism, Observance of moral
norms, Poverty, Illiteracy, Desire for Independence, Preservers of the Ancient
culture of the society, Legal Self Government
The bond of kinship and close ties of the inhabitants with the land developed a high sense of
community feeling in the primitive village community.

Features of Indian Society- Urban

Due to industrial development there is urbanization as a result of which urban societies
created. Every country has its own urban society. Every village possesses some elements of
the city while every city carries some feature of the villages.
The major features of urban society are
 ● Social Heterogeneity, Secondary Relations, Anonymity, Large- scale Division
of Labour and Specialization, Large-scale social mobility, Individuation,
Voluntary Association, Unstable Family, Special Segregation, Lack of
community feeling, Moral Laxity, High incidence of crime, Peculiarities of marital
life, Dynamic life,

The urban society is heterogeneous. It is known for its diversity and complexity. It is
dominated by secondary relations. Urban society is far away from nature and the natural
environment. Mass education is widespread in the city. It is a “Complex Multi-Group Society”.

FORMS OF DIVERSITY IN INDIA

Unity implies oneness or a sense of we-ness, it holds tightly together the various
relationships of ethnic groups or institutions in a dovetailed manner through the bonds of
contrived structures, norms and values. The sources of diversity in India may be traced
through a variety of ways, the most obvious being the ethnic origins, religions, castes, tribes,
languages, social customs, cultural and subcultural beliefs, political philosophies and
ideologies, geographical variations etc.
● LINGUISTIC DIVERSITY
○ Development of Languages during the British rule in India : The British Raj
was keen on developing the regional languages, however, for the purpose of
administration, they needed a common language. The major cause for the
slow paced development of the nationalistic movement was mainly due to the
diversity in languages. After Independence, the country was in its worst state.
○ While forming the constitution of India, the leaders of the nation had to come
up with a national language. They decided on Hindi as the national language
and the use of English for official purposes.
○ India still faces the problems due to the diversity in languages. One of the
foremost problems is the lack of a unified language system. Though a
national language was chosen among the 114 officially recognized
languages and 216 (Census of 1991) mother tongues in India, only 28%
of the populations speak this language.
● Religious Diversity in India
○ The major religions in India are following: Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism,
Jainism, Christianity, Islam, Parsi, The basic ideas and faith of the each
religion differs. But they co existently stood in Indian society.
○ major Negative impact of religions : Groupism, Communalism,
Dogmatism(every religion has a set of beliefs which may be superstitious
quite often. Such ideas block the development of society and the progress of
individuals.), Block social change
○ Unity and diversity of India is unique. It presents endless varieties of
physical, social and cultural patterns. It is probably in India that one can
find confessing all the major religions of the world. These are strong
unifying which bind the nation as a homogeneous socio cultural entity.

● RACIAL DIVERSITY
○ The racial classifications are made on the basis of certain genetic traits.
Such types of traits used in classification of races are referred to as racial
criteria.
 ○ The following eight different ethnic groups are found here. 1. Pre-Dravidian 2.
Dravidian 3. Indo-Aryan 4. Turko-lranian 5. Scytho-Dravidian 6. Arya-
Dravidian 7. Mongoloid 8. Mongoloid-Dravidian.
● ETHNIC DIVERSITY
○ Unity holds tightly together the various relationships of ethnic groups or
institutions in a detailed manner through the bonds of contrived structures,
norms and values. However, unity does not mean uniformity which implies
similarity unity may be born out of similarity.
○ Ethnic group is a social category of people who share common culture,
common language or dialect, a common religion, a common norm,
practices, customs and history. Ethnic groups have a consciousness of
their own culture bound.
○ India is an ethnological museum. The waves of immigration have drawn
the ancestors of the majority of present population into India from the
surrounding territories across the Himalayas.
BONDS OF UNITY IN INDIA
● Unity implies oneness or a sense of oneness meaning integration. However, unity
does not mean uniformity which implies similarity.
● M.N.Srinivas observes that the unity of India is essentially a religious one.
People may worship different deities but the religious scriptures – Puranas,
Brahmanas, Epics and Vedas – knite the numerous heterogeneous groups
together into one religious society and give them the sense that their country
is sacred.
● The bond of unity in relation to India heritage in a certain underlying uniformity of
life, have been reflected in the observations of many foreigners also.
● Unity amidst diversity is visualized in the geo-political sphere, institution of
pilgrimage, tradition of accommodation, tradition of interdependence,
emotional bond etc.
● That is the unity of common culture and tradition, common historical growth,
common fight for freedom against British rule, common allegiance to India and
common loyalty to the Indian national flag.
● GEOGRAPHICAL UNITY : The natural boundaries provide India a geographical
unity, a unity which surprises the Europeans scholars who themselves live in small
countries and find it difficult to comprehend how such a vast country which varieties
of nature can be united. The name’ bharatvarsha’ lies in the historical significance
which symbolizes unity. Nature has bestowed on India its gift through natural
boundaries to maintain her unity. India is a vast country having diverse
geographical features. Even then India looks like a single geographical entity. India is
known for its geographical unity marked by the Mountain ranges in the north and the
oceans on the other sides. India absorbed and assimilated different cultures.
People of different cultures such as the Aryans and the Dravidians lived here
together. Hindus, Christians, Muslims, Jains, Buddhists, Sikhs all lived in close
proximity and participated together in government, trade, industry, commerce and
other activities.
● RELIGIOUS UNITY : Religious unity in India finds its expression through the places
of worship scattered all over the country. Such religious places of Hindus as
Badrinath in the North, Dwarika in the west and Ramashwaram in the south
and Puri in the east represent the religious unity of this vast country. It has been
 considered obligatory for every Indian to visit each of these holy places. But this
pilgrimage comprehends the feeling of patriotism and a feeling for the unity of
his country also. Hinduism being the major religion of people in India provides
the basis of unity. People have worshipped god and goddesses in temples
everywhere in India. The great epics like the Ramayana and the Mahabharata are
devotionally read by people throughout the country.
● ROLE OF RELIGION IN SOCIAL INTEGRATION : M.N.Srinivas examines the role
of the religion in social integration as a binding force amongst individuals and groups.
In cities Hindus and Muslims have been greeting each other on their festive
occasions. There is an association between religious communities and specific
economic functions they perform. The spread of various communities all over the
country and diversification of their economic activities have strengthened the process
of social integration.
● RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE IN INDIA : The overwhelming impact of Hinduism on the
Indian minds can be considered as the single most important unifying factor. India is
a land of diverse religious faiths. Religious concepts like monotheism, immortality of
the soul, re-incarnation, karma, nirvana, moksha etc. inspire people all over the
country. Sages and saints, religious preachers and the pilgrims have never
differentiated between the north and south. If Shankaracharya carried the message
from the south to the north, Buddhism and Jainism spread from the north to the
south. Chitanya, Kabir and Nanak formed the connecting link among various regions
of the country. One big difference between Hinduism and other faiths is that it does
not proclaim that it alone shows the path to liberation(Sarva Dharma Sambhava).
Our Vedic religion alone has not practiced conversion and the reason for it is
that our forefathers were well aware that all religions are nothing but different
paths to realize the one and only Paramatman. Our long history is sufficient
proof of this. All historians accept the fact of our religious tolerance. That the
beliefs and customs of the various religions are different cannot be a cause for
complaint. Nor is there any need to make all of them similar. The important thing is
for the followers of the various faiths to live in harmony with one another. The goal
must be unity, not uniformity.
● POLITICAL UNITY : Political unity is an outcome of religious and cultural unity. In
history many kings rebelled against the central authority. No single instance is there
to show that any Indian king ever tried to annex the territory of foreign ruler but they
wanted to expand the kingdom in Indian territory to become a sole monarch under a
single control which is good for the people. Our political unity is no gift of british.
Its origin falls far beyond the apparent. We ignored the political idea of the Indus
valley people, though the extent of their civilization is highly impressive. Even after
achieving her political freedom, India has shown her oneness at the attack of
China and three attacks of Pakistan and the recently concluded Kargil war. The
typical feature of Indian democracy is the existence of a multi party system.
Different states may have different governments. But all the states are controlled by
the central government. Fundamental rights granted to all the citizens of India.
● Forces of unity in modern India : M.N.Srinivas noted that India, as a secular state,
tolerates diversity. The five year plans, the spread of egalitarian ideals, a single
government and a common body of civil and criminal laws are enough evidence of
India’s plural character and oneness. The constitution of independent India has
established the “rule of law” throughout the entire country. All citizens are equal
 and subject to the same authority. Religion, language, region, caste or community
is no longer the basis of special powers and privileges. The weaker sections of
society, the scheduled castes, the scheduled tribes and the other backward classes
have been given special concessions to bridge the gap between them and the upper
castes and classes. Today no caste or social group suffers from any kind of social
disability. Women enjoy equal rights with men in all respects. The policy of divide and
rule adopted by the British to rule this country is no more in operation. Colonial
exploitation has been replaced by processes of development and egalitarian
ideology.

‘Indians value religious freedom, not integration’

● Most Indians(more than 80%), cutting across religions, feel they enjoy religious
freedom, value religious tolerance, and regard respect for all religions as central to
what India is as a nation.
● At the same time the majority in each of the major religious groups show a marked
preference for religious segregation and “want to live separately”.
● South India is more inclusive, says Pew Center report on religious attitudes in the
country.
● And yet, paradoxically the majority in all the faiths scored poorly on the metrics for
religious segregation: composition of friends circle, views on stopping interreligious
marriage, and willingness to accept people of other religions as neighbours.

A ‘tolerant’ India can be majoritarian

● B .R. Ambedkar once said, “... fraternity can be a fact only when there is a nation.
Without fraternity, equality and liberty will be no deeper than coats of paint.”
● The PEW Survey abounds in other paradoxes: 80% (across all religions, in almost
same proportion) think that respecting other religions is a very important part of their
own religious identity, 91% assert that they are free to practise their religion, 77% of
Muslims believe in the Hindu notion of karma, but when it comes to inter­religious
marriages, friendships and neighbours, there is a marked tendency to keep
communities separate. Thus, 67% of Hindus and 80% of Muslims believe it is
important to stop women of their communities from marrying outside; 86% of Hindus
have their close friends come mainly or entirely from their religion.
● Scholar Bhikhu Parekh argues that plural cultures have always existed in the past,
but what marks out contemporary multicultural societies is the premise of equality of
cultures, and not just self contained co existence.
○ The key features of multi­culturalism/composite culture are cultures beyond
compartments, constant dialogue and mutual change, and a strong streak of
interrogation of “settled beliefs” across all cultures, especially the dominant
culture.
○ absence of solid state and civil society arrangements in educational
pedagogy, personal relationships, workplace, to facilitate inter­cultural
interaction, and based on equality and respect,
● The American philosopher Michael J. Sandel argued that under rising extreme
inequalities of capitalism, there is a “skyboxification of American life”, in which the
affluent classes and people of poor means have no connection at all, and they “live
 and work and shop and play in different places” and their “children go to different
schools”. In India, this plays out differently not just in economic terms, but also in
religion, and more starkly, caste, the fundamental divide.
● Every religion is riven by caste. Like with religion, 64% say that it is “very important”
to prevent women from crossing caste boundaries in marriage, and 70% affirm that
“most or all of their close friends share their caste”.
● Survey brings to the fore the central contradiction of a democratic nation that is
divided by compartmentalised hierarchies.
● This can only be overcome by the unison of social groups, especially the oppressed,
across, religious and caste boundaries.
● As B.R. Ambedkar recognised a long time ago, the central barrier to the making of a
nation is “separation in social life”.
● The antidote to the fear of other social groups, especially minorities, often is
increased interaction among them in a variety of public and private settings.
● In several aspects such as the superiority of one’s own religion, having friends and
neighbours from other religions, preventing inter­religious marriages, the importance
of being a Hindu and speaking Hindi to be a true Indian, prohibition of beef, the
attitudes in South India differ, not by a small, but a substantial margin to the rest of
India, especially the North and the Central parts. This enhanced willingness to break
differences permeates both Hindus and Muslims in the South, showing the wider
reinforcing effects of increased mutual interaction.
● Since culture affects politics, Hindu nationalism has had much less electoral success
in the South, at least so far.
 COMMUNALISM

In India, communalism arises when religion is used as a marker to highlight socio-economic

disequilibrium between communities and as a force multiplier to demand concessions.
A man of religion is not communal, but a man who practices politics by linking it with religion
is communal. Hence we can define communalism as “political trade in religion”.
Communalism refers to a “belief or ideology according to which all people belonging to one
religion have common economic, social and political interests and these interests are
contrary to the interests of those belonging to another religion”.

Features of Communalism
● multifaceted process based on orthodoxy and intolerance.
● propagates intense dislike of other religions.
● It is exclusive in outlook, a communalist considers his own religion to be superior to
other religions.
● It adopts extremist tactics including use of violence against other people.
Factors aiding Communalism in India
● Political factors : British policy of divide and rule, religion-based identity politics &
ills of electoral politics.
● Economic factors : British policy of ‘divide and rule’. A prominent reason why this
policy gained currency was that the Muslim middle class had lagged behind the
Hindus in terms of education, which contributed to their low representation in
government jobs. The Mappila Rebellion, the first so-called communal clash, was
also more of a proletarian strike against the landed gentry than a communal riot. It
only so happened that the landed gentry were Hindus and the peasants were
Muslims. In India, politics of opportunism is the biggest cause of communalism
driven by the middle/ upper class for secular gains and trusted by the lower
sections that identify with the cause.
● Historical factors : British historians projected ancient India as being ruled by
Hindus and Medieval period as the period of Muslim rule.
● Social factors : Issues like beef consumption, Hindi/Urdu imposition,
conversion efforts by religious groups etc., further created a wedge between the
Hindus and Muslims.
Evolution of Communalism in India
Pre-Independence
● Liberal Phase:
 ○ Post 1857 revolt, the British preferred Hindus over Muslims in matters of
employment, education etc.
○ Communalism in India got its initial start in the 1880s when Syed Ahmed
Khan opposed the national movement initiated by the Indian National
Congress.
○ Eventually, prominent Muslims like Aga Khan, Nawab Moshin-ul-Mulk etc.
founded the All India Muslim League, to consolidate Muslim interests.
○ Simultaneously, Hindu communalism was also being born. It manifested
in Hindu leaders disseminating notions of tyrannical Muslim rule, espousing
the language issue and giving it a communal twist. They declared Urdu to be
the language of the Muslims and Hindi of Hindus. Further, anti-cow
slaughter propagation was undertaken in the 1890s and it was primarily
directed against Muslims.
○ Revivalist movements like Arya Samaj, Shuddhi Movement (among
Hindus), Wahabi Movement , Tanzeem and Tabligh movements(among
Muslims) etc. gave further impetus to communalist tendencies.
○ The British gave a momentum to the communalist divide through their
administrative decisions and policies such as division of Bengal, Morley-
Minto reforms (1909), Communal Award (1932) etc.
● Extremist Phase:
○ Post 1937, India witnessed extreme communalism based on the politics of
fear, psychosis and irrationality. During this phase, the interests of Hindus
and Muslims were deemed to be permanently in conflict.
○ Communalism acquired a popular base among urban lower middle class
groups and mass movements around aggressive, extremist communal
politics emerged.
● The manifestations of communal killings and disturbances resulted in Calcutta killings
(1946) and eventually resulted in the division of India and creation of Pakistan.
Post-Independence
● Colonialism is perceived as the prominent factor for emergence of
communalism in India. However, overthrowing colonial rule proved to be only a
necessary condition for fighting communalism, not sufficient. Because even
post-independence, communalism persisted and has been the biggest threat to
the secular fabric of our nation.
● Reasons for persistence of communalism in post-independence period
○ Slow development of the economy
○ Improper cultural synthesis
○ Perceived or relative deprivation
○ Regional or social imbalance in development
○ Political mobilization in the age of democracy has led to consolidation of
communal sentiments.
○ among all the socio-religious communities, Muslims are the most
economically vulnerable, educationally backward and financially excluded.
this vicious cycle of illiteracy - unemployment - poverty.
● Anti-Sikh riots (1984), Issue of Kashmiri Hindu pandits (1989), Babri Masjid
incident (1992), Godhra Riots (2002), Assam violence (2012).
● Current issues regarding communalism
 ○ ‘love jihad’ controversy : Hadiya case, Supreme Court protected her
freedom to choose her religion and freedom of movement and asked her to
return to college to continue her studies.
○ Beef consumption and ensuing mob lynching
○ Ghar Wapsi programmes
○ Religious fundamentalism among youth : on-going threat of radicalization
among Kashmiri youth, which can give an impetus to already existing
separatist tendencies.
● Measures to address the problem of communalism:
○ persuasive as well as punitive measures are required to curb its spread.
○ Building solidarity and assimilation of various religious groups at
different levels in society, workplace, neighborhood etc. by fostering a secular
culture eg. celebrating each other’s religious festivals.
○ Swift and prompt response to radicalization by a militant group on
social media through police action, counselling sessions for those
radicalized especially adolescents etc.
○ Ensuring that political parties refrain from using religion, religious
ideologies in order to garner votes through strict vigilance by institutional
mechanisms such as the Election Commission, media, civil society etc.
○ Instances of an inter-religious marriage of two consenting adults should not
be construed as a “love jihad issue” and highlighted in the media. Thus,
media persons should be sensitized regarding the issue.
○ Stern law should be framed by the Parliament against communal violence.
The weaknesses of laws have resulted in the escape of politicians and other
influential persons who have openly indulged in inciting communal violence.
○ Police and other bodies upholding law and order should be held accountable
as sometimes the police bow down to pressure from politicians and remain
inactive during communal violence and in the course of its follow up
○ Pluralistic settlement where members of different communities live together
should be encouraged by removing existing barriers as religious
segregation strengthens communal identities and reinforces negative
stereotypes of other religious groups. Eg. taking action during instances of
intolerance where Muslims, Dalits, North-Eastern citizens etc. are denied
housing owing to their identities.
○ Sachar Committee report on the status of Indian Muslims recommended
the creation of an Equal Opportunities Commission to deal with complaints
of intolerance and exclusion.
○ Secular education should be taught in all educational institutions, which
will lead to development of harmony and co-operation among members
of different communities.
○ History education should be de-communalized as the present categorization
of Indian history into ancient, medieval and modern has contributed to
communal thinking
○ Increased employment opportunities for minorities can lead to decrease
in communal discord. Thus, there should be focus on skilling members of
minority communities through various programmes and initiatives.
 ○ Religious heads can play an important role in dissemination of ideas of
diversity of religion, ideas, etc. which can help in spreading peace among
different communities.
○ Media, movies and other influences should be used in promoting religious
harmony and peace.
In Ireland’s complex troubles, lessons for India
● The communal clashes of April in Northern Ireland, that left 74 policemen injured,
threaten to undermine the fragile peace between Protestant pro­British loyalist
unionists who want to remain part of the United Kingdom forever, and Catholic
pro­Irish nationalists who wish Northern Ireland to become part of the Republic of
Ireland.
● The fact that the people are just one, with parity in mutual fear, esteem and consent,
is never addressed and artificial differences are played up by political elements
wishing to stoke communal sentiments and keep both communities at the mercy of
irresponsible and divisive forces.
● Peace is an extraordinarily brittle entity, and any functioning democracy must ensure
a daily commitment to addressing communal issues with vigilance, tolerance and
compromise. These are lessons to be drawn in India.
● The recent violence in Northern Ireland shows that every country needs leadership
that takes responsibility for peoples’ social and economic problems and steers
prejudices away from entrenched phobias. The ruling party in India needs to be
aware that creating religious tensions between communities has incalculable deep
seated negative consequences that will severely damage every section of society
and all our established political and national institutions.

REGIONALISM
A region is characterized by a widely shared sense of togetherness among the
people. This togetherness results from a wide variety of sources like geography,
topography, religion, language, customs and mores, political and economic stage of
development, way of living, commonly shared historical experiences, etc.
Region provides the basis for the emergence of regional identity. It results in loyalty
towards the region and ultimately takes the shape and form of regionalism. It gives
way to regional politics.
Regionalism: Regionalism can be defined as a phenomenon in which people’s political
loyalties become focused upon a region. In other words, it implies people’s love of a
particular region in preference to the country.
Characteristics of regionalism
● Regionalism is conditioned by economic, social, political and cultural
disparities.
● Regionalism is built around as an expression of group identity as well as loyalty
to the region.
● Regionalism presupposes the concept of development of one's own region
without taking into consideration the interest of other regions.
● Regionalism prohibits people from other regions to be benefited by a particular
region.
Regionalism in Indian Politics
● Regionalism is a pre-independence phenomenon. It became predominant in the
post independence period. The politics of regionalism started with the
implementation of constitutional reforms under Government of India Acts of 1909,
1919, and 1935.
● After independence there are four major landmarks in the development of
regional politics.
○ democratic form of government and electoral politics
○ Integration of the Princely States
○ Reorganization of states on linguistic basis
○ personal and selfish ends of politicians : Identity politics

Bases of Regionalism
● Geographical Bases : Usually people relate their regional identity to certain specific
geographical boundaries. After independence integration of Princely States
resulted in the merger of small states into new big states. The loyalties of
citizens were torn between old territorial boundaries and new territorial
structures.
● Historical and Social Bases :
○ History: It supported regionalism with cultural heritage, folklore, myths
and symbolism. The most striking example is that of Dravida Kazhagam
(DK) and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) in Tamil Nadu.
Economic and political factors have combined with history to generate
regionalism.
○ Language: Language is perhaps the most important mark of group
identification. Language expresses the shared life, thought structure and
value patterns of people. It has the capacity to unite the people together
and make them work to improve their common destiny. In this sense
linguistic homogeneity strengthens a positive movement.
○ Thus, regionalism is closely associated with language but is not
synonymous with linguism. It is one of the several bases of regionalism in
India. In most cases of linguistic regionalism many interrelated factors
are usually found to be working together.
○ Caste: An important example of the caste factor providing impetus to
linguistic regionalism can be seen in the case of Tamil Nadu.
 ○ Religion: Religion like caste does not play a significant role except when it
is combined with dominance and linguistic homogeneity as in Punjab or
fed on a sense of religious orthodoxy and economic deprivation as in
Jammu and Kashmir.
○ Taking into account these three factors i.e. language, caste, religion &
imbalanced socio-economic development one can say that the study of
regionalism in Punjab and Tamil Nadu makes it very clear that political
movements for regional demands were carried out formally in the name
of language but in reality they had substantive non-linguistic bases too.
● Economic Bases
○ Economic policies have led to regional imbalances and wide economic
disparities among various regions resulting in discontentment among them.
○ The erstwhile movements for a separate Uttarakhand state in the hill
districts of U.P., a Jharkhand state carved out of parts of Bihar and the
demand for a state of Bodoland comprising a part of Assam.
● Politico-Administrative Bases
○ It only accentuates regionalism. Politicians take advantage of the
situation of regional discontentment and unrest. They convert it into
movements for strengthening their individual and factional support
bases. It is a known fact that fighting within Congress gave rise to
Telangana agitation.
● Forms of Regionalism
○ Demand for State Autonomy
○ Supra-state Regionalism: This implies that more than one state is involved
in the issue of regionalism. It is an expression of group identity of some
states. They take a common stand on the issues of mutual interest vis-a-vis
another group of states. For example, the rivalry existing between south
and north India on such issues as language Hindi.
○ Inter-state Regionalism: It is related with state boundaries and involves
overlapping of one or more state identities, which threaten their interests.
River water disputes
○ Intra-state Regional Politics or Sub-regionalism: This refers to
regionalism, which exists within a state of the Indian Union. It embodies the
desire of a part of a state for identity and self-development. Vidarbha in
Maharashtra, a Saurashtra in Gujarat, a Telangana in Andhra Pradesh
○ Son of Soil theory: It ties people to their place of birth and confers some
benefits, rights, roles and responsibilities on them, which may not apply to
others. It is accentuated by factors such as competition for resources,
jobs, economic disparities, etc.
● Positive Impacts of Regionalism
○ Inter-group solidarity in a particular region, to protect an otherwise
endangered tribal identity in the state by providing a democratic platform for
former separatists and has reduced the bases of political extremism in the
state.
○ a source of identity among people. healthy for maintaining the socio-cultural
fabric of India. Given the increasing uncertainty in the contemporary
globalized world.
 ○ induce competition among people of a region and propel them to do better to
improve the status of their region. Eg. Competitive federalism in India
● Negative Impacts of Regionalism
○ adverse impacts on national integration, as loyalty to a particular region
remains stronger than loyalty to the nation.
○ used for political leverage in order to garner votes.
○ the law and order situation is disturbed. It can also result in violence.
○ can give a leeway to external factors (E.g. terrorist groups, extremist groups)
● Is Regionalism a threat to National Integration?
○ Regionalism is not significant merely as a disintegrating force. Regionalism is
not opposed to national integration. Both can exist together in a creative
partnership. Both are in favor of development.
○ If we want to reconcile the competing claims of regionalism and national
integration the political system of the country should remain federal and
democratic.
○ Regionalism is not disruptive of national solidarity. The important condition for
national solidarity is that nationalism should be able to hold the different types
of regional sub nationalities together.
● Within India, regionalism has been based on the diversity of culture, language, tribes,
religions and other socio-cultural factors as seen below:
○ Language: sons of soil doctrine
○ Tribal Identity: The regional aspirations of the North-east were mainly
based on the distinction of tribal identity.
○ Economic inequality and Regional deprivation : partition of India turned
the North-East region into a landlocked region and affected it economically.
Due to this isolation from mainstream India, the region remained backward in
terms of developmental parameters. Recently the creation of Telangana after
a long struggle underscores the significance of regional deprivation all the
more.
○ Combination of multiple factors
● Being a vast and diverse country India has seen multiple challenges emanating from
regionalism based on multiple factors. However, the spirit of unity in diversity and
constitutional mechanisms of democracy and federalism has enabled it to ward off
these challenges from becoming destabilizing.

SECULARISM
Secularism is a principle which advocates the separation of religion from politics. It is the
principle of separation of government institutions and persons mandated to represent the
state from religious institutions and religious dignitaries.
Difference Between Western Concept of Secularism and Indian Secularism

Indian secularism Western secularism

Equal protection by the state to all religions. Separation of state and religion as mutual
It reflects certain meanings. First secular exclusion it means both are mutually
state to be one that protects all religions, exclusive in their own spheres of operation.
but does not favor one at the cost of others
and does not adopt any religion as state
religion.

The idea of inter-religious equality is at little scope for community based rights or
the core of Indian secularism. Equal minority based rights.
focus has been given on the inter-religious
and the intra-religious equality. It not only
deals with the religious freedom of the
individuals but with the minority
communities also.

It promotes state sponsored reforms in the the state maintains an arm’s length distance
religious sphere on equal footing. from religion in all matters.

Indian secularism allows for principled more or less homogenous society in

state intervention in all religions. It allows
equal disrespect for some aspects of
organized religions. Example: practicing
social evils as an essential part of religion.
comparison to India so they naturally focus
on the intra-religious domination and strict
separation of the state from the church is
emphasized to realize the individual
freedom.

Constitutional Provisions Regarding Secularism in India

● Article 25: guarantees freedom of conscience and free profession, practice and
propagation of religion.
● Article 26: every religious denomination has the freedom to manage its religious
affairs.
● Article 27: Freedom from payment of taxes for promotion of any particular religion.
● Article 28: Freedom as to attendance at religious instruction or religious worship in
certain educational institutions.
● Article 15: Prohibition of discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or
place of birth.
● Article 29: Protection of distinct language, script or culture of minorities
● Article 30: Rights of all minorities, whether based on religion or language, to establish
and administer educational institutions of their choice.
● The Preamble of India states that India is a secular country (added after 42nd
Amendment Act, 1976).
Distinctive Features of Indian Secularism
● The Indian idea and practice of secularism, though was inspired by its western
origins yet, was firmly rooted in India’s own unique socio-historical
 circumstances- i.e. the remarkable religious diversity in contrast to the
mono-religious nature of western societies
● The Indian conception of secularism thus recognized the deeply religious nature of
Indian society & infused the principle of equality within the practice of religion.
Secularism was turned into a non-negotiable basic feature of the constitution.
● promote not only inter religious equality ( i.e, equal rights for all citizens
irrespective of their religious preferences, along with added protection for religious
minorities) but also intra religious equality ( by ensuring that one sect of a religion
does not dominate over another).
● The desirability of state intervention into religious matters has been upheld under the
Indian conception of secularism to give space to progressive voices within every
religion.
● At the same time, the Indian ideal of secularism clearly cautions against allowing
religion to interfere in state matters, thereby disallowing mobilizing the electorate on
religious lines for winning elections on one hand while strictly spelling out that the
Indian nation-state shall have no state religion.
Some Judicial Pronouncements Regarding Secularism in India
● Keshavanada Bharati case (1973)
● S. R Bommai vs Union of India case (1994)
Contemporary Issues
● Uniform Civil Code (UCC)
○ Article 44 of the Constitution states that "the State shall endeavour to secure
for citizens a uniform civil code throughout the territory of India." It essentially
means a common set of laws governing personal matters for all citizens of the
country, irrespective of religion.
○ will ensure equality in terms of justice to both men and women regardless of
the faith they practice.
○ help in improving the condition of women in India as Indian society is mostly
patriarchal
○ Informal bodies like caste panchayats give judgements based on traditional
laws. UCC will ensure that legal laws are followed rather than traditional laws.
○ It can help in reducing instances of vote bank politics. If all religions are
covered under the same laws, politicians will have less to offer to
communities in exchange of their vote.
○ help in integration of India as a lot of animosity is caused by preferential
treatment by the law in favour of certain religious communities.
● Challenges in Implementing Uniform Civil Code Include
○ might interfere with the principle of secularism, particularly with the
provisions of Articles 25 and 26, which guarantee freedom relating to religious
practices.
○ Conservatism by religious groups
○ It is difficult for the government to come up with a uniform law that is
accepted by all religious communities.
○ Drafting of UCC is another obstacle. There is no consensus regarding
whether it should be a blend of personal laws or should be a new law
adhering to the constitutional mandate.
● Issues of Instant Triple Talaq
 ● Entry Movements to Places of Religious Worship Led by Women’s
Organizations : Sabarimala Temple

ROLE OF WOMEN AND WOMEN’S ORGANIZATIONS

Imagine the following scenarios:
● A couple lives in your neighbourhood. The husband stays at home and takes care of
their two-year-old daughter and manages other household chores while the wife
works in a bank as a manager.
● You are waiting for a bus at the bus stop and a young man takes out a knitting needle
and wool and starts knitting. A school girl who is also waiting for a bus climbs a
tamarind tree to look for a raw tamarind.
Do these events surprise you? What reactions do you expect to hear from people with
respect to these incidents? What is so unique about these scenes / events that people have
to express their surprise or pass such comments? Why cannot a man knit or a girl climb a
tree? What is wrong if a man stays at home and takes responsibility for child care and
housework? Why cannot a woman give full time attention to her career?
These images surprise people because they are contrary to the existing practices, which
they usually see in society. It is our culture, which has built many stereotypical images
of men and women, and over a period of time most people have come to accept it as
the right image.
Women can thus be described as a social category. socially constructed power
relations and are culturally determined.
Women play various roles in their lifetime ranging from a mother to that of a breadwinner
but are almost always subordinated to male authority; largely excluded from high status
occupation and decision making both at work and at home. Paradoxically, even in our
Indian society where women goddesses are worshipped, women are denied an
independent identity and status.
The Profile of Women in India
● Sex Ratio & Mortality Rate : As per census 2011 sex ratio for India is 940 females
per 1000 of males. State of Haryana has the lowest sex ratio in India and the figure
shows a number of 877 females to that of 1000 males while Kerala has the highest of
1084 females per 1000 males.
● As per World Economic Forum survey, India’s Global Gender Gap Index, 2019
ranking is 112 out of 144 countries, behind neighbours China and Bangladesh,
primarily due to less participation of women in the economy and low wages.
● Declining Child Sex Ratio :
○ As per the Census, 2011 the child sex ratio (0-6 years) has shown a
decline from 927 females per thousand males in 2001 to 919 females per
thousand males in 2011
○ Reasons : son preference and the belief that it is only the son who can
perform the last rites, that lineage and inheritance runs through the male
line, sons will look after parents in old age, men are the bread winners
etc. Exorbitant dowry demand, Small family norm coupled with easy
 availability of sex determination tests may be a catalyst in the declining
child sex ratio
○ It is striking that the lowest child sex ratios are found in the most prosperous
regions of India. Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi, Gujarat and
Maharashtra are among the richest states of India in terms of per capita
incomes, and they are also the states with the lowest child sex ratios. So the
problem of selective abortions is not due to poverty or ignorance or lack
of resources. It is also possible (though this issue is still being researched)
that as economically prosperous families decide to have fewer children –
often only one or two now – they may also wish to choose the sex of their
child. This becomes possible with the availability of ultrasound technology.
○ Consequences : sharp increase in violence against women,
commodification of women as well, with practices of purchasing of brides from
poor areas. increasing cases of polygyny due to shortage of women. There
are cases of forcible marriage of widows.
○ In a study conducted by the Centre for Social Research, Haryana, fear of
violence against women is a major cause of female foeticide.
○ The government has tried to counter the declining sex ratio through initiatives
like Beti Bachao, Beti Padhai; Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana etc.
● Reproductive Health :
○ Maternal Mortality Rate in India has dropped from 167 to 130
○ Institutional deliveries: Number of institutional deliveries rose by 15% from
2004 to 2014, mostly aided by JSY.
● Literacy - The female literacy levels according to the Literacy Rate 2011 census are
65.46% where the male literacy rate is over 80%.
● Employment – Of the total female population 21.9% are a part of Indian
workforce. Majority of women are employed in the rural areas and in agriculture.
Amongst rural women workers 87% are employed in agriculture as laborers,
cultivators.
● Political Status of Women - The number of women in the Parliament has never
crossed the 20% mark till now.(14.4% in 17th Lok Sabha)
○ In the Panchayats, 33% of the seats are reserved for women.
○ The government had proposed a reservation for women in the Parliament, but
the bill has still not been passed.
What are the reasons behind such a low status being accorded to women in India?
● Social Structure, Social Processes and Women
○ The Caste Structure : The subordination of women was crucial to the
development of caste hierarchy. It is observed that the development of
gender division, based on the control of female sexuality, was integral to the
formation of the social structure.
The control on women comes from two major aspects :
● Women’s disinheritance from immovable property, removing
them from the public sphere and limiting them to the domestic
sphere in the form of seclusion.
● Far greater control is exercised by men over women’s sexuality
through arranged marriage, child marriage, the prohibition of
divorce, and strict monogamy for women.
 These strictures were enforced most strictly by the upper castes to
maintain ritual purity, biological purity, caste supremacy and economic
power.

● Institution of Family : At present, barring the Nair community of Kerala, the

Khasis of the north-east, the Garos of the North-eastern India, and certain
tribes in the Lakshadweep, all the other communities practice a patrilineal
descent system. religious scriptures, especially the Hindu religion place
a high preference for sons. A son is necessary for lighting the funeral
pyre of the father.
● Socialization within the Family : Socialization performs the function of
transmitting culture, tradition, social values and norms. Boys are equipped
with higher education and skills in order to perform the ‘breadwinner’s’
role and the girls are initiated into domestic chores at an early age, given
lesser education, trained to work hard and to develop low self-esteem.
Boys receive a status of permanence as against girls who are seen as
temporary members of the family.
● Media messages about women and girls perpetuate stereotypes and sexist
images which enable the media industry to maintain its market.
● Class Structure and Women’s Work : The constraints on women that vary
from upper to the lower castes are reinforced by the class structure as well.
Women of upper castes/classes are secluded, and participate in activities in
the domestic sphere. Women from artisan castes/classes contribute to the
home-based production They belong to the bottom of the hierarchy where
seclusion and restriction on social mobility are not practiced.
Quantifying Women’s Work in GDP
Women play a very important role in households, but their contribution is not a part of
the GDP calculation and hence goes unnoticed or rather not quantified. In contemporary
society, working women are facing double exploitation because they are forced to do
the household work even after working at home.
This quantification of women's work is important for them to gain recognition, and for their
roles to be given more importance.

Missing Women
Lack of participation of women in workforce:
● India has one of the lowest female labour force participation (FLPF) rates among
emerging markets and developing countries.
● A majority of women are working in the rural and urban unorganized sector without
the protection of labour legislation regarding wages, hours of work, working
conditions, health and maternity benefits and childcare services.
Reasons for low labour force participation:
● Increased income of men: as men start to earn more, women tend to cut back their
work to concentrate more on household activities.
● Caste factor : in some upper castes, there is a stigma attached to women working
outside the home
● Institutional Barriers : Safety issues and harassment at workplace
● Increasing numbers of women of working age are enrolling in secondary
schools.
 ● Nature of economic growth: not being able to create a large number of jobs in
sectors that could readily absorb women, especially those in rural areas.

How to bring women into workforce:

● Bridging gender gaps in secondary and tertiary education.
● Creating employment opportunities in male dominated sectors
● Ensuring skill training for women in key sectors
● Strengthening legal provisions for women and the enforcement of these laws (like
harassment at workplace)
● Reshaping societal attitudes and beliefs about women participation in the labour
force.

Women’s Issues: A Manifestation

● Female foeticide & infanticide
● Rape, sexual harassment & abuse-
● Domestic violence and dowry deaths
● Prostitution
● Objectification of women : Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition)
Act, 1986 prohibits indecent representation of women through advertisements or in
publications, writings, paintings etc. However, a whole lot of indecent representation
of women is done through literature, media, paintings etc. upholding the “right to
freedom of expression”.
Women’s Issues: Responses
● Women’s Movements
○ Women started forming their own organization from the end of the nineteenth
century first at the local and then at the national level. In the years before
independence, the two main issues they took up were political rights
and reform of personal laws. Women’s participation in the freedom struggle
broadened the base of the women’s movement.
○ In post-independence India, large number of women’s autonomous
groups has sprung up challenging patriarchy and taking up a variety of
issues such as violence against women, greater share for women in
political decision making, etc. both at the activist and academic level.
● Women’s Movement as a Social Movement
○ Conventionally social movements are viewed as intended and organized
collective actions based on certain defined aims, methodology for collective
mobilization, distinct ideology, identified leadership and organization.
● Dimensions of Indian Women’s Movement
○ Unlike the women’s movement in the West, the Indian women’s movement
began in the shadow of colonial rule and the commitment to attain freedom
from colonial rule.
○ Since the late 19th century Indian society, witnessed an active feminist
movement. The early attempts at reforming the conditions under which
Indian women lived were mainly carried out by western educated middle
and high-class men. Soon they were joined by the women of their
families. These women along with the men began organized movements
fighting against the oppressive social practices such as female
infanticide, sati, child marriage, laws prohibiting widow remarriage, etc.
 ○ The public participation of these women of middle and high caste and
class backgrounds led to the birth of women’s organizations in the early
20th century. They began fighting for the status and rights of women.
○ Another strand in the women’s movement developed roughly around this
time. The Left-radical tendency was shaped in women’s movement by
their activities among women of the working class. E.g, Pritilata, Prafulla
Chakki
○ Women’s movements of the late 1970s and early 1980s were dominated
by such autonomous women’s groups, which were mostly city based.
These groups sprang up as part of the movement for democracy and against
gender discrimination.
○ Many autonomous groups, which were mostly women-only groups,
without party affiliations and conventional hierarchical organizational
structures, were also formed mainly dealing with domestic issues such as
domestic violence.
○ Overall, Indian Women Movement witnessed three tendencies in terms of
their affiliations- the bourgeoisie liberals, the left radicals and the
autonomous groups.
● Socio-Religious Reform Movement
○ Women’s Organizations Started by Men
■ Brahmo Samaj, Prarthana Samaj,
■ Social reformers mentioned above eulogized the position of women in
ancient India. However radicals like Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar,
Jyotibha Phule and Lokhitwadi Gopal Hari Deshmukh accused the
caste system responsible for the subjugation of women in
society.
■ While the men wanted the women to be educated and take part in
public activities, but at the same time they regarded the home as the
primary focus for women.

○ Women’s Organization Started by Women

■ Ramabai Saraswati formed the Arya Mahila Samaj in Pune and a
few years later started the Sharda Sadan in Bombay.
■ Bharat Mahila Parishad(Ramabai Ranade) was the women’s wing of
the Social Conference and was inaugurated in 1905. It focused on
child marriage, condition of widows, dowry and other “evil”
customs.
■ In 1910, Sarala Devi Chaudhurani formed the Bharat Stree Mandal
○ National Freedom Movement
■ The involvement of a really large number of women in the national
movement began when Gandhiji launched the first Non Cooperation
Movement and gave a special role to women.
■ Women participated in the Salt satyagraha, in the Civil Disobedience
Movement, in the Quit India Movement and in all the Gandhian
satyagrahas. They held meetings, organized processions, picketed
shops selling foreign cloth and liquor and went to jail.
■ Gandhiji took interest in collective mobilization of women to fight for
political freedom as well as for their social and political rights.
 ■ There were others who could not accept his creed of non-violence and
joined revolutionary or terrorist groups.
■ Women’s participation in the national movement helped in breaking
several of the old barriers of tradition and custom. Women’s
organization side by side raised their voices for removal of social
injustice meted to them, which resulted in passing of the resolution on
Fundamental Right of equal rights for both the sexes at the
Karachi session of the Indian National Congress in 1931.
■ In 1917 Anasuya Sarabhai had led the Ahmedabad textile
workers’ strike and in 1920 under her leadership the Majdoor
Mahajan, the Ahmedabad textile mill workers union was
established.
○ The early 20th century saw the growth of women’s organisations at a national
and local level. The Women’s India Association (WIA) (1917), All India
Women’s Conference (AIWC) (1926),
Post Independence
● Over the years the planning strategies (line of action) for women have shifted from
Welfare to Development and to Empowerment.
● MGNREGA and Women : More than half the jobs going to women workers and
almost a third to members of scheduled castes and scheduled tribes.
● The 12th Five Year Plan Working Group (WG) on ‘Women’s Agency and
Empowerment’ builds on the view that development is a process of expanding
freedoms equally for all individuals, and considers gender equality as a core
development goal in itself. It expands the definition of women’s empowerment by
looking at it as a process, which enables women to have a notion of dignity and
self-worth, bodily integrity, freedom from coercion and control over resources.
The Plan advocates a shift from mere ‘income’ poverty of women to the
adoption of a ‘multidimensional’ approach to poverty and wellbeing.
● One of the weaknesses in the political strategies of women’s organisations in the
1950s and 1960s was their inability to mobilise ordinary women and failed to
address the issues that concerned them.
● The late 1970s and 1980s was marked by a resurgence of women’s struggle and
emergence of new women’s groups and organisations. After their participation in the
nation's independence struggle women again withdrew from public life and the
debate on women’s issues also faded out from the public arena.
● Emergence of New Organizations and Approaches
○ Organisation : New organisations such as Self-Employment Women’s
Association (Gujarat), Working Women’s Forum (Tamil Nadu) concerned
themselves with the plight of women workers in the unorganised sector.
○ Approaches : In the late 1970s several women’s organisations emerged
which were not affiliated to political parties or to trade unions. They were
called ‘autonomous women’s organisations’. They rejected the ‘welfarist’
approach.
○ Deforestation and Ecological Movement : Chipko movement.
○ Issue Based Movements in the 1970s and 1980s : The autonomous
women’s organisations’ took up issues related to women’s oppression like
dowry, violence within the family, alcoholism among men and
wife-beating, discrimination at the work place etc. to mobilise women for
 collective action. Issues of rape, dowry murders, crime and violence
against women were taken up.
○ Anti-dowry Movements, Anti-rape Movement(Nirbhaya case, #MeToo
Movement, Bihar’s ban of liquor was spearheaded by women)
○ SHGs and Women : SHGs have been successful in fulfilling their aim of
empowering women, and to help eradicate poverty in rural areas. social
and economical empowerment, helpful in providing women with financial
autonomy, in participation in community driven program, self employment
autonomy,
○ Though SHGs have had an immense impact on the status of women, but they
can be made more effective in the following ways : Through proper
capacity building, training and skill upgradation of women, Providing
technical help to the SHGs so that they can also utilize the ongoing ICT
revolution and grow further.
● Women Empowerment Programs/Schemes by GoI
○ Gender Budgeting- India incorporated this in its budget since 2005-06. GB
involves dissection of the Government budgets to establish its gender
differential impacts and to ensure that gender commitments are translated
into budgetary commitments. E.g, Nirbhaya fund
○ Swadhar Greh - This scheme aims to provide basic necessities to
marginalised women and girls who are living in difficult circumstances
without any economic or social support.
○ Swa Shakti – This project aims at establishment of more than 16000 self
reliant women SHGs(Self Help Groups) having 15-20 members each.
○ Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS)
○ Ujjawala (2007)
○ Beti Bachao Beti Padao
● Legislative Acts
○ Special Marriage Act 1954, Hindu Succession Act 1956, Immoral Traffic
Prevention Act (ITPA), 1986, Dowry Prohibition Act 1961, Maternity benefit
Act 1961, Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act 1971, Domestic
Violence Act 2005
○ National Commission for Women

● SC terms 2005 law on domestic violence as milestone

○ It is the first significant attempt in India to recognise domestic abuse as a
punishable offence, to extend its provisions to those in live-in relationships,
and to provide for emergency relief for the victims, in addition to legal
recourse.
○ Conclusion: The progress of any society depends on its ability to protect and
promote the rights of its women. Guaranteeing equal rights and privileges to
women by the Constitution of India had marked the step towards the
transformation of the status of the women in this Country.

○
Misinformation through a feminist lens
● Sexism and online harassment prevent women from taking vocal stands and
hinder progress
● The online world amplifies the social norms of the physical world. Women face
aggressive and offensive trolling on the Internet, designed to undermine and discredit
them professionally and shame them into silence.
● ‘Sulli Deals’ app recently created on GitHub that auctioned Muslim women. - to
undermine the vocal minority protesters
● Misinformation/disinformation also targets men and women differently and
unsurprisingly so, especially in India where gender disparity among Internet users is
high.
● A report by Amnesty International last year said that 95 female politicians out of 724
received nearly one million hateful mentions on Twitter between March and May, one
in five of which was sexist or misogynistic.
● But misinformation like other forms of abuse has inter­sectional challenges.
Organised disinformation and sexism intersect with Islamophobia, castetism,
religious bigotry and other forms of discrimination to threaten vocal women from
minority communities.
● We also seldom question Twitter on its failure to stop the spread of pornographic
content. The women of Shaheen Bagh were targeted in a similar fashion.
● Gendering misinformation should be a part of the feminist discourse.
● But while on the one hand women are targeted with sexist attacks, on the other, their
sexuality is used to further misinformation. Last year, the Chhattisgarh Police
arrested a 31-year old man for running multiple fake Facebook accounts posing as a
woman and “posting provocative comments that could hurt social harmony”.
● Men are at the centre of the disinformation ecosystem in India. While women also
share false news, the number of men disseminating misinformation is higher for the
simple reason that they are greater in number on the Internet (almost double the
female population).
● Men manufacture false news and also fall for such news. They are proof that ‘women
gossip more’ is a gender stereotype.
● One of the most recent incidents that exposes gendered disinformation in India is the
Rhea Chakraborty saga. The whole episode was a reminder of deep rooted
internalised misogyny in the country.
● Misinformation and sexism have a symbiotic relationship. Misinformation piggybacks
on sexism to discredit vocal women and sexism uses misinformation to reinforce
patriarchal norms.
● While organised misinformation and trolling affect women on a personal level, the
issue that is often ignored is the effect they have on democracy. A healthy democracy
is participatory and promotes gender inclusiveness. Sexism and misinformation
intimidate women from taking vocal stands and are antithetical to a progressive
society.
● Historically, feminist movements have led to democratisation. Women
empowerment cannot be separated from a modern society. Savitribai Phule
could reform modern education in the 1800s because her husband Jotirao
Phule, a ‘Shudra’ himself, equipped her with knowledge restricted for the
Brahmin community. Jotirao was also fortunate to receive education in the first
place because of the foresight of his widowed aunt.
● Menaka Guruswamy and Arundhati Katju, the only openly gay women lawyers
in India, reformed the LGBTQ movement in the country by winning the
landmark case in 2018 that decriminalised gay sex. These women went against
the social norms of their time to make India more democratically sound.
● While social media gives a platform for women to raise issues, repeated abuse
takes away that freedom.
 POPULATION AND ASSOCIATES ISSUES
An educated, enlightened and informed population is one of the surest ways of
promoting the health of a democracy – Nelson Mandela
India’s population as of March 2011 stood at 1,210 million, which account for approx. 17% of
the world’s population. These 1.21 billion people are unevenly distributed over our
country’s vast area of 3.28 million square km, which accounts for 2.4 per cent of the
world’s area.
The density of population in India (2011) is 382 persons per sq km.
Factors Influencing the Distribution of Population
Geographical Factors
● Availability of water : It is no wonder that civilizations like the Indus and
Mesopotamia developed at the banks of rivers which ensured adequate and
assured water supply for settlement.
● Landforms (Relief) : People prefer living on flat plains and gentle slopes. The
Ganga plains are among the most densely populated areas of the world while
the mountainous zones in the Himalayas are scarcely populated.
● Climate
● Soils
Economic Factors
● Minerals: Areas with mineral deposits attract industries. Mining and industrial
activities generate employment. So, skilled and semi–skilled workers move to these
areas and make them densely populated.
● Urbanisation: Cities offer better employment opportunities, educational and medical
facilities, better means of transport and communication.
● Industrialization
Social and Cultural Factors
● Some places attract more people because they have religious or cultural
significance. In the same way – people tend to move away from places where there
is social and political unrest.
Determinants of Population Change
Three factors determine the change in the size of the population of any country: how many
persons are born, how many persons die, and how many persons are added to the
population after considering the number of persons leaving the country and the number of
persons coming
● Fertility : The total fertility rate refers to the total number of live births that a woman
would have if she lived through the reproductive age group.
Determinants of High Fertility
● Religious Ideologies
● Universality of the institution of marriage.
● Early marriage and early child-bearing
● Preference for sons ingrained in the Indian culture.
● Lack of right of self-determination with reference to reproduction.
● High infant and child mortality rates - (unsatisfactory health, low
nutritional status and poverty) also contribute to a large family size.
● Economic, social, cultural as well as religious value of children in the Indian
society.
● Absence of adoption of methods of conception control
Implications of High Fertility
 ● Women are tied down to child-bearing and child-rearing for the best years of
their productive lives.
● denied the opportunity to explore other avenues for self-expression and
self-development.
● Excessive child-bearing affects their own health and that of their children.
● Looking after a large number of children puts a further strain on the slender
physical and emotional resources of such women.
● Economic distress and vicious cycle of poverty : Child labour starts at a very
early stage.
● They even indulge in delinquency and are, therefore, denied the opportunity
to go to school and get educated.
● The girl child is the worst sufferer in these circumstances. Early marriage
pushes her into child-bearing, and the vicious cycle continues.
● Mortality : Crude Death Rate, Expectation of Life at Birth, Infant Mortality Rate,
Maternal Mortality Rate
● An Indian born in 1950 could expect to live for 37 years, whereas today
India’s life expectancy at birth nearly doubled to 68 years
● IMR in the country has declined steadily from 47/1000 live births in 2010
to 32/1000 live births in 2018.
● Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) has declined from 167 per 1,00,000(2011)
live births to 113 in 2018 in the Country.
● Migration : Migration can be internal (within the country) or international (between the
countries). Internal migration does not change the size of the population, but influences
the distribution of population within the nation. Migration plays a very significant role in
changing the composition and distribution of population.
Trend in Growth of Indian Population
Average exponential growth rate for 2001-2011 has declined to 1.64% per annum from
1.97% per annum during 1991-2001. The average annual exponential growth rate during
1981-1991 was 2.16.
● The period from 1901-1921 is referred to as a period of stagnant or stationary
phase of growth of India’s population, since in this period growth rate was very
low, even recording a negative growth rate during 1911-1921.
● The decades 1921-1951 are referred to as the period of steady population growth.
An overall improvement in health and sanitation throughout the country brought
down the mortality rate.
● The decades 1951-1981 are referred to as the period of population explosion in
India, which was caused by a rapid fall in the mortality rate but a high fertility
rate of population in the country.
● In the post 1981 till present, the growth rate of the country's population though
remained high, has started slowing down gradually.
Demographic Dividend
● Demographic dividend occurs when the proportion of working people in the total
population is high because this indicates that more people have the potential to be
productive and contribute to growth of the economy.
● More than 63% of the population in India is in the age group of 15-59 years,
broadly termed as India’s demographic dividend.
 ● Changes in the age structure due to the demographic transition lower the
‘dependency ratio’, or the ratio of non-working age to working-age population, thus
creating the potential for generating growth.
● But this potential can be converted into actual growth only if the rise in the
working age group is accompanied by increasing levels of education and
employment. Thus, changing age structure by itself cannot guarantee any
benefits unless it is properly utilised through planned development.
● Human Capital : It refers to the stock of productive skills and technical
knowledge embodied in labour.
● The extent to which resources are used and the way in which they are used
determine whether an area is under- or overpopulated. A country is said to have an
optimum population when the number of people is in balance with the available
resources.
● If the population becomes too large then the “law of diminishing returns” begins to
operate.
● total disabled population of 2.68 crores in Census 2011.
Issues related to Youth
● National Youth Policy 2014 defines the age of youth as persons between the age
15-29 years.
● Employability Challenge - Over 30% of youth aged 15-29 in India are not in
employment, education or training (NEETs)
● Drug Abuse - Due to India’s close proximity with major opium growing areas of the
region, India is facing the serious menace of drug trafficking and as a spillover effect,
drug abuse especially among the youth
● Suicidal Tendencies
● Radicalization
● Political exclusion- Young people have been excluded from development programs
and activities in numerous ways.
National Youth Policy
● It will cover the entire country catering the needs of all youth in the age-group of
15-29 years, which constitutes 27.5 per cent of the population according to
Census-2011, that is about 33 crore persons.
Objective
● Create a productive workforce that can make a sustainable contribution to
India’s economic development :
○ Education, Employment & Skill Development, Entrepreneurship
● Develop a strong and healthy generation equipped to take on future challenges
○ Health & Healthy lifestyle, Sports
● Instill social values and promote community service to build national
ownership
○ Promotion of social values, Community engagement
● Facilitate participation and civic engagement at all levels of governance
○ Participate in politics and governance, Youth engagement
● Support youth at risk and create equitable opportunity for all disadvantaged
and marginalised youth
○ Inclusion, Social Justice
Factors that affect population growth
The overarching factor that affects population growth is low socio-economic
development.
● Infant mortality : IMR is the lowest at 15 in Kerala and the highest at 73 in Uttar
Pradesh. Empirical correlations suggest that high IMR leads to greater desire for
children.
● Early marriage : Not only does early marriage increase the likelihood of more
children, it also puts the woman’s health at risk.
● Level of education : Fertility rate usually declines with increase in education levels
of women
● Women Empowerment
● Availability of health services : Use of contraceptives
● Other socio-economic factors : preference for a male child,

NPP-2000: The Way Forward

NPP-2000 cannot be solely judged a success or failure on the basis of Fertility rates alone.
Total fertility rates ignore the larger mission of NPP-2000, namely the promise of high
quality reproductive healthcare. While southern states like Kerala and Andhra Pradesh
are successfully prioritizing proper implementation and women’s health, the vast majority of
states continue to compromise reproductive health with poor service.
The solution to poor implementation is clear : state governments and other
administrators of NPP-2000 need to prioritize reproductive health at every level of the
family planning program.
● By formalizing the relationships among Panchayats, NGOs, grassroots
organizations, and state officials, the family planning program will likely garner
greater support and transparency.
● take steps to attract health care workers and doctors to the family planning
field. In addition, staff must be properly trained and held accountable for their work.
● Collaborative family planning decisions made by men and women are likely to
yield fertility outcomes which satisfy both partners. Thus, administrators of the
National Population Policy (2000) should take steps to educate men and women
about the benefits of family planning.
● What families lack is education, information, and adequate access to
contraceptives.
● Apart from achieving the basic demographic goals, a future population policy
must also address the skewed female and child sex ratio which is spreading
from urban into rural areas. Discriminatory social barriers like the absence of
women’s ownership rights over land and property are responsible for the
continuing son preference.
● a future population policy must address migration. The Census 2011 has given
the picture of interstate and intrastate migration triggered by employment,
business, education, marriage and other variables. Unplanned migration to the
metros and large cities puts pressure on the infrastructure, housing and water
availability and creates insider-outsider tension. If this is factored into the
population policy, it would make for more foresight and greater coordination, and
avoid the inevitable outcome of mushrooming slums and unplanned
habitations.
 ● Ageing factor : The growing population of the elderly and the increase in life
expectancy accompanied by chronic diseases has the potential to deflect resources
from the primary task of providing education and skill development.

The Real Population worry

Fertility has been declining in India for some time now. SRS report(2018) estimated the Total
Fertility Rate (TFR), the number of children a mother would have at the current pattern of fertility
during her lifetime, as 2.2 in the year 2018. As fertility declines, so does the population growth rate.
This report estimated the natural annual population growth rate to be 1.38 per cent in 2018. A
comparison of 2011 and 2018 SRS reports shows that TFR declined from 2.4 to 2.2 during this
period. The annual natural population growth rate also declined from 1.47 to 1.38 per cent
during this period.
Many people believe that the population would stabilise or begin to reduce in a few years once
replacement fertility is reached. This is not so because of the population momentum effect, a result
of more people entering the reproductive age group of 15-49 years due to the past high-level of
fertility.
Recently, IHME estimated that it will peak at 160 crore in 2048.
Fertility largely depends upon social setting and programme strength. Female education is a key
indicator for social setting. Broadly, higher the female education level, lower the fertility.
For instance, illiterate women in the reproductive age group of 15-49 years have higher fertility than
literate women in almost all states. As the literacy of women in the reproductive age group is
improving rapidly, we can be sanguine about continued fertility reduction.
Programme strength is indicated by the unmet need for contraception. Bihar, with the highest
fertility rate, also has the highest unmet need at 21.1 percent and the lowest contraceptive
prevalence rate of 24.1 per cent among all the major states. Programme’s ability to reach
younger people and provide them with good quality reproductive health education and services
needs to be urgently strengthened in these states.
The most troubling statistics in the report are for sex ratio at birth. The SRS reports show that sex
ratio at birth in India, measured as the number of females per 1,000 males, declined marginally
from 906 in 2011 to 899 in 2018.
This is a cause for concern because this adverse ratio results in a gross imbalance in the number of
men and women and its inevitable impact on marriage systems as well as other harms to women.
Thus, much more attention is needed on this issue. Increasing female education and economic
prosperity help to improve the ratio. In view of the complexity of son preference resulting in
gender-biased sex selection, government actions need to be supplemented by improving
women’s status in the society.
In conclusion, there is an urgent need to reach young people both for reproductive health
education and services as well as to cultivate gender equity norms. This could reduce the effect
of population momentum and accelerate progress towards reaching a more normal sex-ratio at
birth. India’s population future depends on it.

When two is too little

● Six years after abandoning the “one child policy” of 1979, China’s Communist Party
has now introduced a “three child policy”. The move is to “improve China’s population
 structure, actively respond to the ageing population, and preserve the country’s
human resource advantages”.
● Even leaving aside the strong moral argument against intrusive family planning —
enforcement has meant forced abortions, sterilisations, and other abuses, some of
which are still being reported in parts such as the Muslim­majority Xinjiang region —
China’s experience is a reminder of the unintended social and economic
consequences of state­led demographic interventions.
● China grapples with both an ageing and deeply gender imbalanced population, and
demographers’ worst fears of countries getting old before they get rich.
● “policy makers should give priority to reducing the child rearing costs borne by
prospective parents rather than simply relaxing or even abolishing birth quotas”.
● Population Stabilisation v/s Coercive Population Control(Counterproductive)
● Coercive Population Control - Favor only rich, leads to social biases, Sex Selection
Practices, female infanticide

MIGRATION
The study of migration occupies an important place in population studies, because, along
with fertility and mortality, it determines the size and rate of population growth as well
as its structure and characteristics. Migration also plays an important role in the
distribution of the population of any country, and determines the growth of the labour
force in any area.

In India, the most important sources of data on internal migration are national census and
sample surveys.
What Can be the Reasons That Make People Migrate?
Economic Factors & Demographic Factors
● Low agricultural income, agricultural unemployment and underemployment are the
major factors pushing the migrants towards areas with greater job opportunities.
● Push Factors : adverse economic conditions caused by poverty, low productivity,
unemployment, exhaustion of natural resources, lack of basic infrastructural facilities
like healthcare, education, etc. and natural calamities may compel people to leave
their native place in search of better economic opportunities.
● Pull Factors : opportunities for better employment, availability of regular work,
higher wages, better working conditions and better amenities of life, etc. Pull factors
operate not only in the rural-urban migration, but also in other types of internal as
well as international migration.
Socio-Cultural & Political Factors
Consequences of Migration
Economic Consequences
● Impact on Source and destination regions
Impact on migrants
● Job mismatch, labour market discrimination, unemployment and poor household
income, poverty, precarious work conditions, occupation, industry, and property
ownership are areas of concern for the migrant population.
Demographic Consequences
● Impact on Source and Destination Regions : Migration leads to the redistribution
of the population within a country. Rural urban migration is one of the important
factors contributing to the population growth of cities. Age and skill selective out
migration from the rural area have adverse effects on the rural demographic
structure. However, high out migration from Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Madhya
Pradesh and Eastern Maharashtra have brought serious imbalances in age and
sex composition in these states.
Social and Psychological Consequences
● Impact on Source and destination regions : Migrants act as agents of social
change. The new ideas related to new technologies, family planning, girl’s
education, etc. get diffused from urban to rural areas through them. Migration
leads to intermixing of people from diverse cultures.
● Impact on migrants : Urban life usually brings about certain social changes in the
migrants. Those migrants who return occasionally or remain in direct or indirect
contact with the households of their origin are also likely to transmit some new ideas
back to the areas of origin. But it also has serious negative consequences such as
anonymity, which creates a social vacuum and sense of dejection among
individuals. Continued feeling of dejection may motivate people to fall in the trap
of anti-social activities like crime and drug abuse.
. Environmental Consequences
● Overcrowding of people due to rural-urban migration has put pressure on the
existing social and physical infrastructure in the urban areas. This ultimately
leads to unplanned growth of urban settlement and formation of slums and
shanty colonies.
● Due to over-exploitation of natural resources, cities are facing the acute problem
of depletion of groundwater , disposal of sewage and management of solid
wastes.
Political Consequences
● A demographic shift in favor of immigrants may adversely affect incumbents control
over resources and make them economically vulnerable. Societies may also react
unfavorably to immigration if immigrants are perceived to be a social or an
economic burden.
● Immigrant receiving countries may find preserving their languages, values, norms
and customs challenging in the face of immigration.
● Human rights violations against migrants, including denial of access to
fundamental rights such as the right to education or the right to health, are often
closely linked to discriminatory laws and practice, and to deep-seated attitudes
of prejudice and xenophobia against migrants.
Modern Slavery
● It refers to situations of exploitation that a person cannot refuse or leave because of
threats, violence, coercion, deception, or abuse of power.
● Modern slavery takes many forms such as - Human trafficking, Forced labour,
Debt bondage/bonded labour, Descent–based slavery, Slavery of children
including child trafficking, child soldiers etc., Forced and early marriage
Factors for Modern slavery
● Absence of the Rule of Law: Without adequate enforcement of existing laws and
the strengthening of legal frameworks, human traffickers operate with impunity.
● Poverty: About 765 million people worldwide live in extreme poverty, making less
than $1.90 per day.
● Marginalized Groups: Groups that face discrimination, including ethnic and religious
minorities, women and children, and migrants and refugees, are vulnerable to
enslavement.
● War and Conflict
● Natural Disasters: Extreme weather, as well as resulting pandemics, can ravage a
country’s physical infrastructure, displace communities, and increase the desperation
of already marginalized groups.
● Deprivation of basic necessities like education, healthcare etc.
● Inequality of various kinds like class, caste and gender.
Modern slavery in India
● Global Slavery Index reported that there were 8 million people in modern slavery in
India.
● Data from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) indicate that there were 8,132
reported cases of human trafficking across India. Most of the victims were
trafficked for forced labour and prostitution.
 URBANIZATION
Urbanization is the process of becoming urban, moving to cities, changing from agriculture to
other pursuits common to cities, such as trade, manufacturing, industry and management,
and corresponding changes of behaviour patterns.
An increase in the size of towns and cities leading to growth of urban population is the
most significant dimension of urbanization.
as per the 2011 census, standing at 31.16% to be exact.
Urbanization and Associated phenomenon
There is no common global definition of what constitutes an urban settlement. The criteria
for classifying an area as urban may be based on one or a combination of characteristics,
such as: a minimum population threshold; population density; proportion employed in
non-agricultural sectors; the presence of infrastructure such as paved roads, electricity,
piped water or sewers; and the presence of education or health services.

Urban Agglomeration
Such towns together with their outgrowths have been treated as one urban unit and
called 'urban agglomeration'. Very often large railway colonies, university campuses, port
areas, military camps etc. come up outside the statutory limits of the city or town but
adjoining it.

Suburbanization
When cities get over-crowded by population, it may result in sub-urbanization. Delhi is a
typical example. Sub-urbanization means urbanization of rural areas around the cities.

Census Towns
To be classified as a census town, a village must fulfil three criteria;
● at least 5,000 inhabitants, a density of 400 people per sq. km, at least three quarters
of its male working population must be "engaged in non-agricultural pursuits".
Process of Urbanization
In the context of India, the process of urbanization is seen as a socio-cultural process,
economic process and a geographical process.
● As a socio-cultural phenomenon, it is a melting pot of people with diverse
ethnic, linguistic and religious backgrounds.
● As an economic process, the city is a focal point of productive activities. It exists and
grows on the strength of the economic activities existing within itself.
● Under the geographical process, it deals with migration or change of location of
residence of people and involves the movement of people from one place to another.
As per 2011 Census, 377 million Indians comprising 31.1% of the total population live
in urban areas. The United Nations (UN) Habitat World Cities 2016 Report estimates that
urban population in India reached 420 million in 2015.

During 1981-2001, urbanization in India was mainly driven by natural increase in the
population of cities (around 60%), followed by rural-urban migration, expansion of
boundaries of cities and re-classification of rural areas into urban areas. However,
between 2001 and 2011, the share of natural increase in the cities’ population declined
to 44% while the share of reclassification of rural areas into urban areas strengthened
and the share of rural-urban migration increased to 24%.

Social effects of Urbanization

● Family and kinship
○ Nuclear families, Individualism, Increasing gender rights,
○ Decision making power in family shifts from senior member to breadwinner.
○ Relations with one’s distant kin are weakening or breaking.
● Urbanization and Caste
○ It is generally held that caste is a rural phenomenon whereas class is
urban and that with urbanization, caste transforms itself into class. But it
is necessary to note that the caste system exists in cities as much as it
does in villages although there are significant organizational differences.
○ Caste identity tends to diminish with urbanization, education and the
development of an orientation towards individual achievement and modern
status symbols.
● Urbanization and the Status of Women
○ The status of urban women, because of being comparatively educated
and liberal, is higher than that of rural women. However in the labour
market, women continue to be in a disadvantaged situation.
○ Women constitute an important section of rural urban migrants. They migrate
at the time of marriage and also when they are potential workers in the place
of destination. While middle class women get employed in white collar jobs
and professions, lower class women find jobs in the informal sector.

Problems of Urbanization
● Housing and Inflated Land Prices : A key factor contributing to inflated land prices
in India has been the flow of illicit money into real estate. At least four supply side
factors have also contributed to the artificially high urban property values in India.
○ As a legacy of the Urban Land Ceilings and Regulation Act, 1976, large
chunks of vacant land have disappeared from urban land markets.
○ Many sick public sector enterprises (PSEs) own large pieces of unused land
in prime urban areas.
○ Central and state governments own substantial urban land that remain
unused or subject to encroachment.
○ Land Acquisition Act, 2013 fixes compensation for acquired land at rather
high levels. In turn, this makes land acquired for affordable housing
expensive and contributes to high costs.
○ A further constraint on the supply of urban land is the stringency of land
conversion rules. Vast tracts of land on the outer periphery of cities are
potentially available for urban expansion. But this requires conversion of the
tracts from agricultural to non-agricultural uses.
 ○
Scarcity of horizontal space can be countered by expanding space
vertically through the construction of taller buildings. The availability of
this avenue depends on the permitted floor space index (FSI), which
measures the floor-space in a building as a proportion of the area of the plot
on which the building stands. Unfortunately, permitted FSI in Indian cities
is extremely low, ranging from 1 to 1.5. Consequently, tall buildings are
virtually absent from Indian cities.
● Housing and Slums
○ With large scale migration to urban areas many find that the only option they
have is substandard conditions of slums. Slums are characterized by
substandard housing, overcrowding, lack of electrification, ventilation,
sanitation, roads and drinking water facilities. They have been the breeding
ground of diseases, environmental pollution, demoralization and many social
tensions.
○ Overcrowding
In major cities in India like Mumbai, Kolkata, Pune and Kanpur, somewhere
between 85% and 90% of households live in one or two rooms. In some
homes, five to six persons live in one room. Over-crowding encourages
deviant behaviour, spreads diseases and creates conditions for mental
illness, alcoholism and riots. One effect of dense urban living is people’s
apathy and indifference.

● Water supply, Drainage and Sanitation

○ No city has round the clock water supply in India.
○ Drainage situation is equally bad. Because of the non-existence of a drainage
system, large pools of stagnant water can be seen in the city even in summer
months.
○ Removing garbage, cleaning drains and unclogging sewers are the main jobs
of municipalities and municipal corporations in Indian cities. There is a total
lack of motivation to tackle the basic sanitation needs of the cities.
● Transportation and Traffic
○ Absence of planned and adequate arrangements for traffic and transport is
another problem in urban centres in India. Majority of people use buses and
tempos, while a few use rail as a transit system. The increasing number of
two-wheelers and cars make the traffic problem worse.
○ The design and maintenance of city roads is a major challenge in Indian
cities. The roads are notorious for being pedestrian-unfriendly, poorly
surfaced, congested, and constantly dug up.
○ Metro rails can be an efficient source of public transportation in many cities.
The success of some initial metro projects has led to demands for the same
in other cities.
● Pollution

Urbanization and Governance

Governance is the weakest and most crucial link which needs to be repaired to bring
about the urban transformation so urgently needed in India. Financing the large sums
required to meet the investment needs of urban infrastructure is crucially dependent on the
reform of institutions and the capacity of those who run the institutions for service delivery
and revenue generation.
The municipal entities need to be strengthened as local governments with ‛own’ sources
of revenue, predictable formula-based transfers from state governments, and other
transfers from the Government of India and state governments to help them discharge
the larger responsibilities assigned to them by the 74th Constitutional Amendment.
ARC in its 6th report mentioned measures to strengthen urban governance. Some of its
important recommendations are-
● Urban local bodies should be given responsibility for water supply and
distribution in their territorial jurisdiction whether based on their own source or
collaborative arrangements with other service providers.
● Sanitation, as a matter of hygiene and public health, must be given priority and
emphasis in all urban areas.
● Community participation and co-production of services should be encouraged
by municipal bodies. This should be supplemented by awareness generation.
● In all towns and cities with a population above one lakh, the possibility of taking up
PPP projects for collection and disposal of garbage may be explored.
● Municipal bodies should be encouraged to take responsibility for power distribution in
their area.
● Urban Transport Authorities should be set up in cities with a population over one
million within one year, for coordinated planning and implementation of urban
transport solutions with an overriding priority to public transport.
As per NITI Ayog, well-run ULBs should have the power to raise financial resources
including through municipal bonds. Introduction of Standardised, time-bound, audited
balance sheets across ULBs would help improve financial management as well as
spur further reforms in this area. Indian cities also need to overhaul their municipal
staffing and introduce appropriate skills to achieve administrative efficiency.
Major Programmes Currently in the Area of Urban Development
● Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana
● Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) : to provide hard
infrastructure for universal coverage of piped drinking water, sewerage and
green spaces and parks.
● Smart Cities Mission
● Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban)
● Deen Dayal Antodaya Yojana – National Urban Livelihood Mission (DAY – NULM)
● National Heritage City Development & Augmentation Yojana (HRIDAY) Mission
Way Forward
India needs to work on several areas to manage its urbanization: The following are perhaps
the most important: Inclusive cities, funding, planning, capacity building and
low-income housing.

URBAN TRANSFORMATION
Urbanization is a form of social transformation from traditional rural societies to modern
urban communities. Urban transformation expresses entire strategies and actions used to
improve the economic, social, physical, and environmental conditions of damaged and
collapsed urban areas by comprehensive and integrated approaches.
For example, in Pune, India's first worker-owned waste-pickers’ cooperative is helping
to create an efficient waste-collection system that reaches more residents and shows cities
how to incorporate informal workers into a modern economy.
The approach of urban transformation becomes important due to following reasons:
● Population growth: By 2050 the proportion living in urban areas is expected to
reach 66%.
● Employment opportunities
● Economic growth: Indian cities are likely to contribute to 70% of India’s GDP by
2030.
● Sustainable development: The urban transformation puts the cities on a central
stage for accelerating change towards local and global sustainability and resilience.
● Haphazard urbanisation
What are the challenges in effecting urban transformation?
● Institutional:
○ The 74th amendment act has been implemented half-heartedly by the states
which have not fully empowered the Urban local bodies (ULBs) functionally
and financially.
○ Public monopoly, organizational inefficiency, technical flaws in the form of
high leakages, lack of preventive maintenance, poor accounting as well as
over staffing and lack of autonomy have led to failure of the public sector to
provide adequate service delivery.
○ Lack of qualified planning professionals
○ Lack a modern planning framework (decentralised planning) which limits
effective land utilisation and cities’ abilities to grow in accordance with
changing needs.
● Infrastructural:
○ heavy pressure on public utilities like housing, sanitation, transport, water,
electricity, health, education etc. due to rapid growth in population
○ Lack of investment in urban infrastructure and capacity building
○ In 2019, New Delhi and Mumbai ranked 118th and 119th respectively, on the
Global Liveability Index that covered 140 cities. Due to high income
inequality and poor quality of life.
● Environmental:
○ higher risk to floods, earthquakes
○ Urban areas are becoming heat islands, rising air and groundwater pollution
and persistent water crisis.
○ pollution in Delhi, floods in Mumbai and Chennai indicate poor urban planning
and management.
● Social:
○ Issues of lack of resources, overcrowding, unemployment, poverty, and lack
of social services and education habitually lead to many social problems and
crimes including violence, drug abuse, human trafficking, sexual assault, child
labour etc.
Steps taken by government to overcome these challenges and their progress
● PMAY-U
○ It addresses urban housing shortage among the Economically Weaker
Sections (EWS) and Middle Income Group (MIG) categories including the
slum dwellers by ensuring a pucca house to all by 2022.
 ○1.12 crore houses sanctioned and more than 50 lakh houses completed.
○Affordable Rental Housing Complexes (ARHCs) for urban migrants/ poor
launched as response to reverse migration induced by COVID-19.
● AMRUT
○ aims to provide basic services like water supply, sewerage, etc. to households
and build amenities in cities. 500 cities selected under AMRUT.
○ 105 lakh household water taps and 78 lakh sewer connections have been
provided.
○ 88 lakh streetlights have been replaced with energy efficient LED lights
leading to energy savings and reduction in CO2 emission.
● SCM
○ aims to promote cities that provide core infrastructure, clean and sustainable
environment to their citizens through the application of ‘smart solutions’ like
smart grid, smart water using Internet of Things (IoT) etc.
○ based on 6 fundamental principles

● 70 Smart cities have developed and operationalised their Integrated

Command and Control Centres (ICCCs) which were used as warrooms for
COVID management.

What can be the approach to accelerate urban transformation in future?

● Urban governance: With cities growing beyond municipal boundaries, having fully
formed metropolitan authorities with clearly defined roles will be essential for the
successful management of large cities in India.
● Integrated planning and management: It should include the needs of the
marginalized sections including their residence, health, water, transportation, and
other amenities at affordable prices.
● Finance: Devolution must be supported by more reforms in urban financing that will
reduce cities’ dependence on the Centre and the states and unleash internal revenue
sources
● Trained human resource

IMPACT OF GLOBALIZATION ON INDIAN SOCIETY

Globalization is a process of increasing interdependence, interconnectedness and
integration of economies and societies to such an extent that an event in one part of the
globe affects people in other parts of the world.
The effect of globalization is far reaching. It affects us all but affects us differently. Thus,
while for some it may mean new opportunities, for others the loss of livelihood. Women silk
spinners and twisters of Bihar lost their jobs once the Chinese and Korean silk yarn entered
the market. Weavers and consumers prefer this yarn as it is somewhat cheaper and has a
shine.
It is obvious that globalization is of great social significance. But its impact on different
sections of society is very different.
Impact of Globalization on Indian Culture
Over the ages India has had an open approach to cultural influences and has been enriched
because of this. The last few decades have seen major cultural changes leading to fears that
our local cultures would be overtaken. Thus there are heated debates in our society not just
about political and economic issues but also about changes in clothes, styles, music, films,
languages, body language.
Homogenization versus Glocalization of culture
Glocalisation refers to the mixing of the global with the local. It is not entirely spontaneous.
Nor is it entirely delinked from the commercial interests of globalization. It is a strategy often
adopted by foreign firms while dealing with local traditions in order to enhance their
marketability.
McDonald's sells only vegetarian and chicken products in India and not its beef products,
which are popular abroad. McDonald’s goes vegetarian during the Navratri festival.
In the field of music, one can see the growth of popularity of ‘Bhangra pop’, ‘Indi pop’,
fusion music and even remixes.

Ritzer(2004) has coined another word grobalization that refers to what he calls “growth
imperatives(pushing) organisations and nations to expand globally and to impose
themselves on the local ''. For Ritzer, Globalization is the sum total of ‘glocalization’ and
‘grobalization’.
Homogenization of Culture
● Family structure: Joint family has been adversely affected due to globalization.
There has been an increase in nuclear families.
● Food: due to opening up of food joints like McDonalds, KFC across the country, there
has been a homogenization of food available across the country, but there has also
been heterogenization in food.
● Use of English has increased manifold in urban areas, this has led to a
homogenization in language across the country, but the rural areas have been less
affected by it.

Glocalization of Culture
● Food: India has its unique cuisine, but the cuisines of foreign countries have become
more easily available, they are modified to suit the taste buds of Indians (like
Paneer Tikka Burger in McDonalds).
● Movies: popularity of foreign movies has increased, Hollywood, Chinese, French
and Korean movies are quite popular among the urban youth. Along with this,
dubbing of these foreign movies in local languages is testimony of increased
glocalization.
 ● Festivals: celebrations of Valentines’ day, Friendship day are examples of
change in cultural values related to festivals. However, along with these new days,
traditional festivals are celebrated with equal enthusiasm.
● Marriage: Importance of marriage is decreasing, there has been an increase in
divorce, increase in live-in relationships, and single parenting is increasing. Marriage
used to be considered as bonding of the souls; but today marriage is becoming
professional and contractual. However, despite change in forms of marriage, it has
not declined as an institution.
● Indo-western dress
Revival of Culture
● Revival of Yoga in the country as well as in the international level. celebration of
International Yoga day across the world
● a revival of ayurvedic medicines in the country as well as outside it
● Due to increasing global tourism, locals are making efforts to preserve their diversity
and revive their traditions.
● Festivals like Holi, Diwali etc. are becoming famous in Western Countries.
● Bollywood movies like Dangal, Secret Superstar etc. very famous in China
● Traditional sports like Malkhamb becoming famous in USA

Impact of Globalization on Women in India

Positive of Globalization
● Opened up broader communication lines and brought more companies - more
opportunities for women who are becoming a larger part of the workforce
● Increased rate of urbanization : Women in urban areas have become more
independent and self-sufficient.
● Feminist movement has spread to India due to globalization, making women
more vocal about their ideas. E.g, #MeToo
● Increase in education of women, it has led to an improvement in health care
facilities, leading to reduction of MMR and IMR
● Different non-profit organizations have been brought to India from around the
globe. These organizations have given women the skills they need to advance, such
as literacy and vocational skills.
● The women in rural settings have been influenced by globalization through media
and through numerous intervention programs like non-profit organizations, increasing
self confidence of women and motivating them to fight for their rights.
● Changes in attitude of women- more acceptance of western clothes, dating has
become common in urban areas, increased use of contraception in rural as well as
urban areas.
Negative Aspects of Globalization
● Though employment opportunities for women are increasing, they are mostly
crowded in low paying jobs, and have less social security.
● Women are suffering two fold. As women in developing countries move into the
workforce, their domestic responsibilities are not alleviated. Women work two full time
jobs.
● Globalization has occurred with the persistence of patriarchal mindset of Indians,
this has led to problems for women like commodification of women, use of social
media to harass women, increase in violence against women
 ● Exploitation of women in workplace has emerged as a new issue

Impact of Globalization on Youth in India

The majority of India’s population is young. The population growth among youth is one of the
most critical factors in the way India responds to globalization. Indian youth are fuelling both
positive and negative perceptions given to globalization. They are embracing globalization in
a way that the previous generation never imagined.
Economic globalization has led to increased urban poverty as people move from the
rural areas to the cities in search of opportunity. But youth face a high level of
unemployment in urban centres.
Present day youth, with its more materialistic ambitions and more globally informed
opinions, are gradually abandoning the austere ways and restricting traditional Indian
markets.
The younger generation is embracing western popular culture and incorporating it into
their Indian identity.
Consumerism has permeated and changed the traditional beliefs and practices of the
Indian people. The traditional Indian dress is declining, especially among urban youth, in
favour of new fashions from the west. Buying the latest cars, televisions, electronic
gadgets, and trendy clothes has become quite popular.
Globalization also is changing family institutions, and the nuclear family is
increasingly the norm. Youth are not as close to their grandparents as were earlier
generations.
Globalization has led to an increase in uncertainty among youth; this underlying instability
may serve to magnify the tensions and lack of control they experience on a daily basis.
This has led to an increase in cases of depression and suicide among the youth.
Most religious activities are becoming irrelevant to the youth. They want to see changes
in religion.
Economic globalization has improved study and job opportunities and provided
greater employment opportunities. But it has also made the poor even poorer.

Impact of Globalization on Family

Family is becoming progressively weak due to globalization and individualism is growing
rapidly.
Increasing mobility of the younger generation in search of new employment and educational
opportunities has weakened the family relations. It has led to disintegration of the joint
family. Gradual change in family structure from joint/extended families to nuclear family
pattern.
New forms of family are emerging: for example Single parent households, live-in
relationships, female headed households.
The family bonding and ties have started loosening due to physical distance as it
rendered impracticable for family members to come together as often as earlier.
With more women joining the workforce system, the care of the aged within families
has declined.
Finding partners: younger generations have started depending on internet marriage
sites like 'Shadi.com, Bharat Matrimony' etc. Family involvement in finding a groom /
bride is reducing. However, the tradition of arranged marriages is still relevant in
Indian society.
Traditional authority structure has changed. The head of the family- father/grandfather
have started losing their authority to the breadwinner of the family.
Individualism in the younger generation is increasing, many of them don’t believe in total
surrender of their individual interests to family interests.
However, due to penetration of technology connectivity with extended kins has improved.

Impact on Caste System

Due to globalization, there has been changes in the traditional caste system in following
ways:
● expansion of economic opportunities, education and liberal thoughts, which has
resulted in weakening of the caste system.
● Inter caste marriages are becoming more common and are being accepted gradually
● Traditional division of labour was breaking down due to industrialization; this was
given a boost by globalization.
● Increasing use of modern communication facilities, increased interaction between
members of different castes has led to decrease in feeling of Casteism.
● Globalization has resulted in growing urbanization, which has facilitated a secular
pattern of living and hence impacted the “separation of contact” aspect of the caste
system.
However, despite changes, the caste system has shown immense resilience and still
continues to exist as one of the significant features of Indian society.

Socio-Economic Impact of Globalization

Positive Impact includes
● Policies of Privatization and liberalization of economy, along with the process of
globalization - The growth rate of the Indian economy accelerated from 5.29 per cent
per annum during the 1980s to 6.06 per cent per annum during 1991-92 to 2005-06.
● Increase in innovations in the economy and has pushed the culture of start-ups in the
country.
● Access to global capital resources via the stock market and international debt
depending on the economic potential of nations and their markets.
● Decision to go for disinvestment in public sector enterprises thus promoting efficiency
and merit.
● Increase in tourism and development of tourist destinations in India- leading to
increase in foreign reserves
● Boost to urbanization and industrialization
● Vast expansion of sectors like IT, telecommunication and aviation. A notable
revolution has occurred in the telecom sector.
● Now wide choices are available to select goods, which has led to better quality of
products due to greater competition.
● Improved access to health technology (medicines, vaccines and medical equipment
and knowhow).This has led to improvement of the health care system.
● also affected the education sector in India. Globalization has increased the demand
for education due to the economic payoffs of higher education to global, science
based, knowledge. Opening Indian higher education to foreign competition will
benefit the education sector further.
 ● Incidence of poverty declined significantly in many fast growing countries like China,
India and Vietnam.
● Globalization has through greater exposure liberalized our attitudes, reduced our
biases and predispositions about people, situations and communities worldwide.

Negatives
● Indian Economy has become more vulnerable to global shocks like East Asian crisis
1997, European crisis, Global Financial crisis (2007-08) etc
● Globalization has adversely affected many established companies (like organisations
manufacturing Ambassador Cars or Fiat cars etc) which failed to face competition
from established global players.
● Steep and fast reductions in custom duties have snatched a large part of Indian
market from Indian Industry and passed it on to imports from established global
players.
● For its survival in the face of global competition, Indian industry has transformed
itself from labour intensive processes to Capital intensive processes by
adopting global technologies and automatic machinery. This has resulted in a high
rate of unemployment in India.
● a tremendous increase in consumerism for goods and services
We may call globalization, at best, a double edged weapon. It has helped Indian
consumers to enjoy all high Quality global brands. It did help the Government of India
to tide over its serious foreign exchange problem, though temporarily, by enabling it to
get loan from IMF. But critics cite serious erosion of control of Indian Government over
its economy and the loss to local Industry as setbacks.

Impact of Globalization on Employment in India

Globalization affects the employment situation through trade liberalisation, through
encouraging exports and imports and through increasing incentives for investment
and innovation. It also encourages FDI which supplements domestic investment and leads
to higher growth of the economy. Globalization, which is often combined with domestic
liberalisation, also results in reducing the power of trade unions and encourages
informal contractualization and lockouts.
● Globalization has resulted in casualization of labour. Global competition tends to
encourage formal firms to shift formal wageworkers to informal employment
arrangements without minimum wages, assured work or benefits.
● shift in the composition of labour force in favour of the skilled laborers, in general,
and more significantly in the unorganised sector.
● International mobility of labour
● During the 1990s, however, there has been a clear shift in the pattern of labour
demand in the Middle East away from unskilled and semi-skilled categories towards
service, operations and maintenance workers requiring high skills.
● Besides, there has been a runaway growth in exports of IT and software services
from India
● All these have enhanced the employment opportunities for the Indian labour,
particularly when the country boasts to have a very large pool of English
speaking people.
 ● sustained remittances from the Indian Diaspora, which is in fact the largest in the
world, have imparted an element of stability in the country’s balance of payments.
● Woman labour: feminization of the workforce increased after liberalization.

. Impact of Globalization on Informal sector

● Globalization often leads to shifts from secure self-employment to more precarious
self employment, as producers and traders lose their market niche.
● Globalization tends to benefit large companies which can move quickly and easily
across borders but possess disadvantage to labour, especially lower-skilled
workers that cannot migrate easily or at all.
● Lack of opportunities in the formal sector due to lack of skill/education and
slow pace of job creation in the country push people to informal sector
● As more and more men enter the informal economy, women tend to be pushed to
the lowest income end of the informal economy.
● globalization can also lead to new opportunities for those who work in the informal
economy in the form of new jobs for wageworkers or new markets for the
self-employed.

Impact of Globalization on Agriculture

● With globalization farmers were encouraged to shift from traditional crops to
export oriented ‘cash crops’ such as cotton and tobacco but such crops needed far
more inputs in terms of fertilizers, pesticides and water.
● Introduced new water saving practices in India such as drip irrigation.
● There has been a gradual shift from Subsistence farming to capitalist farming
and contract farming
● Increased access to developed country markets. However Indian farmers still find it
difficult to export their products to rich countries because of their inferior technology
and stringent quality parameters imposed by foreign consumers.
● Trading of agricultural commodities has increased which at times lead to fluctuation
of prices of these commodities.
Ways in Which Globalization Affects Environment
● Increase in the consumption of products, which has impacted the ecological cycle.
● Import of waste i.e, e-waste, hazardous waste
● Increase in multilateral institutions to tackle environmental crisis

●
●
WELFARE SCHEMES FOR VULNERABLE SECTIONS OF THE POPULATION BY THE
CENTRE AND STATES AND THE PERFORMANCE OF THESE SCHEMES;
MECHANISMS, LAWS, INSTITUTIONS AND BODIES CONSTITUTED FOR THE
PROTECTION AND BETTERMENT OF THESE VULNERABLE SECTIONS

Vulnerable Sections
The term vulnerability is defined as “proneness to harm or damage originating from
external forces”.
Vulnerable sections are those sections of the population who are at higher risk of
suffering due to imperfect or unjust systems - social, political, cultural, economic,
physical, family structure, environmental or any other factor that has a bearing on these
groups.
“Groups that experience a higher risk of poverty and social exclusion than the general
population. Ethnic minorities, migrants, disabled people, the homeless, those struggling
with substance abuse, isolated elderly people and children all often face difficulties that
can lead to further social exclusion, such as low levels of education and
unemployment or underemployment".
Some common characteristics of vulnerability faced by these vulnerable sections are as
follows:
● They, as a group, are vulnerable
● This vulnerability is due to many factors - socio-cultural, economic
● This vulnerability is systematic and structured
Various groups in India can be included under vulnerable sections viz.- children, women,
scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, other backward classes, minorities, senior
citizens, disabled persons, LGBT communities, poor persons etc.

Rationale of Welfare Schemes for Vulnerable Sections

Constitutional and Philosophical Basis
● Preamble to the Constitution of India seeks to ensure “Justice, social, economic
and political” and “Equality of status and of opportunity”.
● Fundamental Rights
● Directive Principles of State Policy(DPSP) - Welfare State
● Various Conventions under the United Nations also provide for state support to
vulnerable sections, like - UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
● Social Contract Theory and General Will
Humanitarian Grounds
● These vulnerable sections need special assistance and care from the state for their
well-being.
● Humanism,
● Without state help, they will have to face many disadvantages and will not be
able to avail fair and equal life choices as those enjoyed by other citizens.
Economic Imperative
● Inclusive Growth - Inclusive growth is necessary for high economic growth and
they in fact hold a symbiotic relationship with each other.
● Welfare schemes protect the poor and disadvantaged and equip the labour force
in the lower rungs of the skill/economic welfare thus enabling them to better
participate in the process of accelerating economic growth.
Nation Building
 ● Vulnerable sections will always be at a disadvantage which will lead to lower quality
of life and choices enjoyed by them, which will lead to resentment and friction in
the society.

Vulnerable Sections of Society

Children
All children due to their age are considered to be at risk for exploitation, abuse, violence and
neglect. However, children in especially difficult circumstances including orphans and street
children, refugee or displaced children, child workers, children trapped in prostitution
or sexual abuse, disabled children and delinquent children are particularly vulnerable
While the term vulnerable children refer to an age group that is considered at risk, but
vulnerability of children is further compounded by the following factors:
● Physical disabilities
● Mental disabilities
● Illness, Invisible, Powerlessness
Vulnerable children in India face further problems, such as the following:
● Child labourers
● Children facing poverty and discrimination are more vulnerable to malnutrition,
bad health, poor educational facilities, poor resources, thus restricting their
freedoms and opportunities.
● Girl babies are at an even greater disadvantage due to prevailing social norms
● A girl child faces different forms of violence like infanticide, neglect of nutrition
needs, lack of education and healthcare facilities etc.
Facts about Children
● 1 in 4 children of school-going age is out of school in our country (Census 2011)
● 33 million child labourers between the ages of 5-18 years in India (Census 2011)
● Every day, around 150 children go missing in India – kidnapping and abduction is
the largest crime against children in our country (National Crime Record Bureau
2016)
● 38% of children between 0-5 years are stunted in the country (NFHS 4, 2015-16)

Schemes Related to Children

Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) Scheme

This centrally sponsored scheme was launched on October 2, 1975 for early childhood
care by providing for supplementary nutrition, immunization and pre-school education
to the children.
Objectives
● To improve the nutritional and health status of children in the age-group 0-6
years;
● To reduce the incidence of mortality, morbidity, malnutrition and school
dropout;
● To achieve effective coordination of policy and implementation amongst the
various departments to promote child development;
● To enhance the capability of the mother to look after the normal health and
nutritional needs of the child through proper nutrition and health education.
Beneficiaries
● Children in the age group of 0-6 years, Pregnant women and Lactating mothers

offers a package of six services,

● supplementary nutrition;
● pre-school non-formal education;
● nutrition & health education;
● immunization;
● health check-up; and
● referral services
The services under the ICDS scheme are provided at the platform of Anganwadi Centre
(AWC).
Suggestions
● AWC accommodation should be equipped with proper facilities viz. sanitation
facilities, safe drinking water, toilets, sufficient medicines, electricity/power supply,
playing instruments/toys, etc. The centers should be protected with boundary walls or
barbed wires.
● Regular training should be provided to AWC workers and their supervisors. Further
they should get refresher training to handle registers and other records
independently.
Integrated Child Protection Scheme
implemented by MoW&CD as a Centrally Sponsored Scheme from 2009-10.
Its objective is to create a safe and secure environment for children in conflict with law
as well as children in need of care and protection.
Key programmatic components of the ICPS include:
● Emergency outreach services through the Childline 1098 helpline
● Open shelters for children in urban and semi-urban areas
● Family based non institutional care through sponsorship, foster-care, adoption
and after-care
● Institutional care through children’s homes, shelter homes, observation homes,
special homes and specialised homes for children with special needs

Challenges
● The Scheme has been marred by limited capacity and poor fund utilization.
● Survey for vulnerability mapping is a key mandate for the District Child
Protection Units. However, the budget for the same under ICPS is a constraint.
● Emergency outreach services through the Childline 1098 helpline are also facing
issues of inaccessibility
● little focus on the training and sensitisation of functionaries and awareness
generation activities.
Mid-Day Meal (MDM) Scheme
Mid-Day Meal Scheme aims to:
● avoid classroom hunger, increase school enrolment
● increase school attendance, improve socialisation among castes
● address malnutrition, empower women through employment
National Child Labour Project (NCLP)
 ● To eliminate all forms of child labour through identification and withdrawal of all
children in the Project Area from child labour, preparing children withdrawn from
work for mainstream education along with vocational training, ensuring
convergence of services provided by different government
departments/agencies for the benefit of child and their family
● To contribute to the withdrawal of all adolescent workers from Hazardous
Occupations and their Skilling and integration in appropriate occupations through
facilitating vocational training opportunities through existing scheme of skill
developments
● Raising awareness amongst stakeholders and target communities
● Creation of a Child Labour Monitoring, Tracking and Reporting System

9,453 children went missing between Jan­-July 2020: report

● At Least 9,453 cases of missing children were reported in Delhi and four
neighbouring States of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana
between January­July 2020, according to data compiled from RTIs by NGO CRY.
● Nearly 75%, or 7,065, of the total missing children in these five States were girls.
● Bal Swaraj, an online tracking portal of a national child rights body, shows details of
nearly 10,000 children in the country in immediate need of care and protection. They
include children aged between zero and 17 orphaned or abandoned during the
COVID­19 pandemic since March 2020.
● NCPCR informed the Supreme Court that these children ran a high risk of being
pushed into trafficking and flesh trade. illegally transferring details of children to
private entities and NGOs.
● District authorities were asked to immediately cater to the basic needs of food,
shelter and clothes to orphaned and abandoned children.

Breaking the cycle of child labour is in India’s hands

● The Census of India 2011 reports 10.1 million working children in the age group of
5-­14 years, out of whom 8.1 million are in rural areas mainly engaged as cultivators
(26%) and agricultural labourers (32.9%).
● based on the 2011 Census record 38.1 million children as “out of school” (18.3% of
total children in the age group of 6­13 years).
● Work performed may not appear to be immediately dangerous, but it may produce
long term and devastating consequences for their education, their skills acquisition,
and hence their future possibilities to overcome the vicious circle of poverty,
incomplete education and poor quality jobs.
● One piece of good news is that child labour in India decreased in the decade 2001 to
2011 - Policy interventions such as MGNREGA, 2005, RTE, 2009, Mid Day Meal
Scheme. have paved the way for children to be in schools along with guaranteed
wage employment (unskilled) for rural families. Concerted efforts towards
convergence of government schemes is also the focus of the implementation of the
National Child Labour Project.
● Ratifying International Labour Organization Conventions Nos. 138 and 182 in 2017,
the Indian government further demonstrated its commitment to the elimination of
child labour including those engaged in hazardous occupations.
 ● With increased economic insecurity due to COVID 19, lack of social protection and
reduced household income, children from poor households are being pushed to
contribute to the family income with the risk of exposure to exploitative work.
● As many schools and educational institutions are moving to online platforms for
continuation of learning, the ‘digital divide’ is a challenge that India has to reconcile
within the next several years. The NSS Report No. 585 titled ‘Household Social
Consumption on Education in India’ suggests that in 2017­18, only 24% of Indian
households had access to an Internet facility, proportions were 15% among rural
households and 42% among urban households.
● We — governments, employers, unions, civil society organisations and even
individuals — must rise and pledge to ‘Take Action against Child Labour’ as a part of
the UN’s declaration of 2021 as the International Year for the Elimination of Child
Labour.

Midday meals leave a long-lasting impact: study

● Girls who had access to free lunches provided at government schools had children
with a higher height to age ratio than those who did not, said a new study on the
inter­generational benefits of the midday meal scheme. (IFPRI, Nature
Communications)
● More than one in three Indian children are stunted, or too short for their age, which
reflects chronic undernutrition.
● The fight against stunting has often focussed on boosting nutrition for young children,
but nutritionists have long argued that maternal health and well-being is the key to
reducing stunting in their offspring. Noting that “interventions to improve maternal
height and education must be implemented years before those girls and young
women become mothers.
● It found that the midday meal scheme was associated with 13­32% of the
improvement in the heights for age scores in India between 2006 and 2016.
● The scheme was launched in 1995 to provide children in government schools with a
free cooked meal with a minimum energy content of 450 kcal. However, only 6% of
girls aged 6­-10 years had benefited from the scheme in 1999. By 2011, with an
expansion in budget, and state implementation following a Supreme Court order,
coverage had grown to 46%.
● A key takeaway is to “expand and improve school meals now for inter­generational
payoffs not too far down in time.”
● These findings come at a time when the mid­day meal scheme has effectively been
put on hold for the last one and a half years, as schools have been closed since
March 2020.
● The findings of the study exacerbate concerns that the interruptions to schooling and
to the mid­day meal scheme could have even longer term impacts, hurting the
nutritional health of the next generation as well.
Rajiv Gandhi Scheme for Empowerment of Adolescent Girls (SABLA)

SABLA is a comprehensively conceived scheme which involves inputs from key sectors
of health, education and employment, each of which addresses needs fundamental to
the holistic growth of an adolescent girl.
Empowerment of adolescent girls has multiple dimensions, and requires a
multi-sectoral response.
Its intended beneficiaries are adolescent girls of 11–18 years old under all ICDS projects
in selected 200 districts in all states/UTs in the country.
Salient features of the Scheme include:
● Nutrition provision, Iron and folic acid (IFA) supplementation, Health check-up
and referral services, Nutrition & health education, Upgrade home-based skills,
life skills and integrate with the national skill development program (NSDP) for
vocational skills.
Other Schemes Related to Girl Child
● Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao (BBBP)
● 'Sukanya Samriddhi Yojna
● Udaan is an initiative of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) to enable
girl students to soar to higher education from schools, and to eventually take various
leadership roles in future.

Women
India has traditionally been a patriarchal society and therefore women, irrespective of
their class, caste or religion, they have always suffered from social handicaps and
disabilities.
● Women face different forms of violence like infanticide, neglect of nutrition needs,
education and healthcare.
● little or no property in their name and with little or poor formal education, they
become dependent on their male counterpart.
● Early marriage and childbearing affects the health of the women adversely.
Maternal mortality rate is still very high.
● domestic violence, sexual abuse at the workplace and sexual violence including
marital rape and honor killings
Facts about Women
● Child Sex Ratio declined from 927 in 2001 to 918 (Census 2011)
Women
National Commission for Women
set up in January 1992 under the National Commission for Women Act, 1990 to:
● Review the Constitutional and Legal safeguards for women;
● Recommend remedial legislative measures;
● Facilitate redressal of grievances and
● Advise the Government on all policy matters affecting women.
Various functions of the commission are following:
 ● Look into complaints and take suo moto notice of matters relating to: Deprivation
of women's rights; Non-implementation of laws enacted to provide protection to
women and also to achieve the objective of equality and development
● Undertake promotional and educational research
● Participate and advice on the planning process of socio-economic development of
women;
● Inspect or cause to inspect a jail, remand home or other place of custody where
women are kept as prisoners or otherwise and take up with the concerned authorities
for remedial action
● Fund litigation involving issues affecting a large body of women
● Make periodical reports to the Government on any matter pertaining to women
The Commission shall have all the powers of a civil court which includes:
● Summoning and enforcing the attendance of any person from any part of India and
examining him on oath
● Requiring the discovery and production of any document
● Receiving evidence on affidavits
● Requisitioning any public record or copy thereof from any court or office
● Issuing commissions for the examination of witnesses and documents
Rashtriya Mahila Kosh (RMK)
established in 1993, is a national level organization under the aegis of the Ministry of
Women and Child Development, for socio-economic empowerment of women.
RMK extends micro-credit to the women in the informal sector through a client friendly,
without collateral and in a hassle-free manner for income generation activities. It acts
as a facilitating agency wherein RMK provides loans to NGO-MFIs termed as Intermediary
Organizations (IMO) which then lend to Self Help Groups (SHGs) of women.

New India Strategy(NITI Aayog) @ 75, Inclusion - Gender

Objectives :
● To create an enabling environment sans institutional and structural barriers
● To enhance the FLFP rate to 30% by 2022-23
Current Situation
● Current FLFPR is 23.7% (26.7 % in rural, 16.2% in urban) , a decline from 36.9%
in 2004-05.
● On average, 66% of women’s work in India is unpaid, compared to 12% of men’s
● Government initiative to promote gender equality and welfare : BBBP Campaign,
Maternity Benefit(Amendment) Act, 2017, PM Matru Vandana Yojana, POSHAN
Abhiyaan, PM Ujjwala Yojana
Constraints
● Constraints of workplace distance, inflexibility in working hours, lack of
availability of creches, safety etc.
● Absence of opportunities for part-time work and challenges surrounding re-entry into
the workforce further worsen the situation.
● Women’s work comprises mostly of invisible/unpaid work
Way Forward
● Ensure gender sensitive legislation and policies : Keeping in view challenges
faced by women including :
○ Different life stages(Single women, married, young mothers)
○ Levels of education
 ○ Geographic inequities and marginalisation
○ Special need groups such as single mothers, widows, homeless etc.
● Strengthen Legal framework to eliminate discrimination against women
○ Craft legislation for women engaged in the unorganized sector.
○ Ensure mechanisms for implementation of mandatory laws like the
Maternity Benefit Act, including for workers in the informal sector
○ Create liberal laws/guidelines that encourage women to reenter the
workforce after a break
○ Develop and implement Equal Opportunity Policies
○ Reward villages/districts with an equal child sex ratio through
information, education, and communication campaigns
● Generate gender-disaggregated data and rank states on key indicators using
technology - dedicated unit within the MoW&CD
● Encourage women’s participation in Industry and Enterprise : through industry
specific targets, incentivisation(Tax benefits)
○ Enhance access to credit by women entrepreneurs
● Improve asset ownership and Economic Security
● Create enabling conditions for women engaged in agriculture(38%)
○ Ensure 50% women membership in FPOs
○ Specially focus on skill development among women in areas like soil
conservation, social forestry, dairy development, livestock rearing
○ Target agricultural extension services to women farmers as well
● Enhancing women’s skills and leveraging ability
○ Financial incentives for girls’ education until class XII to curb the higher
dropout rate among girls
○ Skill development among women as per local needs and non-traditional
work such as electricians, plumbers, taxi drivers etc.
● Ensure mobility, security and safety for all women
○ Provide affordable housing, residential hostels and gender friendly facilities
○ Improve rural connectivity and public transport systems
○ Ensure gender sensitive, rights based and time bound trials as well as
disposal of cases pertaining to violence against women
○ Strengthen SOPs for tackling crimes against women, including new
forms of violence such as cybercrimes
○ Introduce training on women specific issues & laws for police personnel,
health practitioners etc.

MINIMUM AGE FOR GIRLS MARRIAGE

● Recently, the Prime Minister said that the government will soon decide on revising
the minimum age of marriage for women.
● Government, in June 2020, set up a Task Force (headed by Jaya Jaitly)
○ examine the correlation of age of marriage and motherhood with: Health,
medical well-being and nutritional status of mother and neonate/infant/child,
during pregnancy, birth and thereafter.
○ Key parameters like Infant Mortality Rate (IMR), Maternal Mortality Rate
(MMR), Total Fertility Rate (TFR), Sex Ratio at Birth (SRB), Child Sex Ratio
(CSR) etc.
Argument in favor of increasing legal age for marriage
● Early marriage denies girls the right to the highest attainable standard of
general, sexual, and reproductive health
● Girls who get married at a younger age are not educated properly and do not have
access to healthcare, vaccination, antenatal care, and even facilities for safe delivery
and also lose life owing to pregnancy complications.
● Maternal mortality, infant mortality and nutrition levels of children are dependent on
the age of the mother.
● Those who marry later are more likely than others to have a higher secondary or
college education, take on skilling opportunities, gain a better understanding of the
world around them and exercise their voices.
● It will do away with the gender gap in the legal age at marriage (21 for male and 18
for female), and the underlying social norm which expects women to be younger than
men at the time of marriage.
Issues with increasing legal age for marriage
● Lack of education, skilling and awareness of rights are not directly related to
age only
● Child marriage is a social and economic issue. Despite PCMA, 2006 India is not
able to stop child marriages. According to the National Family Health Survey 4
(2015-16), 26.8% of women between ages 20-24 were married before the age of 18.
● To increase the age of marriage to 21 years would mean that girls will have no say in
their personal matters until they are 21. Child marriage law is used by parents
against daughters choosing their own husbands. It has become a tool for parental
control.
Child marriage law in India
● In India, Prohibition of Child Marriage Act (PCMA), 2006, sets the minimum age of
marriage at 18 years for women and at 21 for men. PCMA treats underage marriages
as valid, but voidable. It means that an underage marriage is valid as long as the
minors involved in the marriage want it to remain valid.
● (POCSO) Act penalizes penetrative sexual assault on a child by anyone related to
the child through marriage.
● Section 375 of IPC penalizes sexual acts with a girl below 18 years of age, with or
without her consent.
● Exception to Section 375 permitting men to consummate marriage with their brides
above 15 but below 18 years of age was read down by the Supreme Court in 2017 in
the case of Independent Thought v. Union of India. Thus, now husbands can be
booked for raping their minor wives.

Way forward
● Incentivising and enabling girls to continue schooling up to Class 12 and helping to
enhance their nutrition can stop under-age marriages.
● Efforts to address child marriage in India should be in consonance with the
socio-economic realities that demand investment in education, welfare, and
opportunities for women.
● Noting the law’s patriarchal underpinnings, the 18th Law Commission report (2008)
asked for uniformity in the age of marriage at 18 years for both men and women and
lowering the age of consent to 16 years, a recommendation also of the Justice Verma
Committee.
Elopements most prosecuted under child marriage law: study
● Legal proceedings against child marriages are commonly undertaken against
elopements whereas forced child marriages often go unpunished
● The study found that legal prosecution of child marriages was twice as much against
elopement or self arranged marriages by girls with such cases accounting for 65% (
54 out of a total 83 cases) of the total cases studied. Only 30% of the cases were
those of arranged child marriages, and a mere 5% were forced child marriages (such
as those that involved kidnapping, enticement or forcible marriage by parents).
● The study terms this “weaponization of the law to settle family dishonour”.
● Law reform in this area must aim to shield the young in self arranged marriages.

MEDICAL TERMINATION OF PREGNANCY (AMENDMENT) BILL, 2020

About MTP bill, 2020

● The bill seeks to amend Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971 to regulate the
conditions under which a pregnancy may be aborted and increases the time period
within which abortion may be carried out.
● set up state level Medical Boards to decide if a pregnancy may be terminated after
24 weeks in cases of substantial fetal abnormalities.
○ All state and union territory governments will constitute a Medical Board
consisting a gynaecologist, paediatrician, radiologist/sonologist, and other
members notified by the state government.
● Upto 20 weeks since conception, advice of one doctor needed to abort pregnancy
● Between 20 to 24 weeks, Two doctors for some categories of pregnant women
● Time more than 24 weeks since conception, Medical Board in case of substantial
foetal abnormality
● Termination due to failure of contraceptive method or device, allows unmarried
women to also terminate a pregnancy for this reason.
● Privacy : A registered medical practitioner may only reveal the details of a woman
whose pregnancy has been terminated to a person authorised by law.
Significance of MTP (Amendment) Bill, 2020
● safe, affordable, accessible abortion services to women if substantial foetal
anomalies detected late in pregnancy and pregnancies due to sexual violence faced
by women.
● Increasing upper gestational limit : necessitated by advancement of medical
technology for safe abortion
● It increases access of women to legal and safe abortion service in order to reduce
maternal mortality and morbidity caused by unsafe abortion.
Issues with MTP (Amendment) Bill, 2020
● Time frame for Medical Board’s decision not specified: Delays in
decision-making by the Medical Board may result in further complications for the
pregnant woman.
● Unavailability of qualified medical professionals to terminate pregnancies
● Right to freedom: The bill still does not give women the freedom to decide, since she
will need a nod from a medical board in the case of pregnancies beyond 24 weeks.
● Categories of women who can terminate pregnancy between 20-24 weeks not
specified.
● Lack of detailed scrutiny by a Parliamentary Select Committee
 ●

REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH
● Reproductive matters encompass rights that enable individuals to make informed
choices and decisions regarding their sexual and reproductive health needs, and to
do so free from discrimination, coercion and violence.
● In India, according to NFHS-4 (2015-2016), only about 12% of currently married
women (15-49 years of age) independently make decisions about their own
healthcare.
Barriers to reproductive Health
● Lack of accessibility: Decisions about contraception and reproductive health care
are sometimes impeded by the distance to clinics and facilities, especially in rural
areas. delays or denials in accessing safe, quality and legal abortion care.
● Availability related issues: Absence of adolescent- and youth-responsive services,
shortages of preferred methods of contraception, poor-quality or poorly managed
services, services that are staffed by judgmental providers and lack of privacy.
● Inadequate Policies: such as non-recognition of marital rape, absence of
Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE).
● Age based Discrimination: For e.g., Unequal access by adolescents to sexual and
reproductive health information and services.
● Structural obstacles: Religion and gender norms can influence the extent to which
laws are implemented or enforced.
● Lack of literacy and awareness about rights
Challenging negative social norms
● demographic sweet spot - Half of India’s population is under 29 years of age, which
means that in this period, a greater proportion of young people will drive India’s
economic growth and social progress. So, they must not only be healthy,
knowledgeable and skilled but must also be provided with the rights and choices to
develop to their fullest potential, including, and especially, sexual and reproductive
health and rights (SRHR)
● India’s population growth is now stabilising. The decline in overall fertility
notwithstanding, the population will continue to grow because of the effect of
‘population momentum’. However, the TFR remains higher than the national average
of 2.2 children among women who live in rural areas, have little formal education and
are in the lowest income quintile — a majority of them live in the poorer States.
● Changing social norms is one of the biggest challenges for India to address the
needs of the next generation. India’s population stabilisation strategy must be
adjusted keeping in mind the rights of women and girls. Women must have a greater
say in choosing their family size. Prescriptive or coercive methods, such as one­or
two child norms, have rarely worked well anywhere for long.
● for women and girls, the empowerment to make choices leads to better health
outcomes, such as knowing how to prevent unintended pregnancy or giving birth with
the help of a skilled birth attendant
 ● pervasive negative social norms, health system barriers and gender inequality
hindered universal access to SRHR
● In the last two decades, India has made substantial gains with SRH indicators.
Progressive policies for maternal health have resulted in improved rates of
institutional delivery and a decline in maternal mortality ratio (MMR) from 327 in
1999­2001 to 113 per 100,000 live births in 2016­18, as per Sample Registration
System (SRS) data
● National Health Family Survey 5 for the year 2019­20 (NFHS­5) shows how
contraceptive prevalence has improved in most States. We ought to celebrate India’s
success, as it significantly contributes to global progress.
● Beti Bachao Beti Padhao (BBBP), has made some efforts to challenge existing social
norms and has underlined that investments in social causes must go alongside
economic progress. All sections of society must embrace this call for positive change,
each doing their part, from the individual to the institution level.
● many challenges on the path to SDGs 2030
○ Two million adolescent girls (15-­19 years) each year had a pregnancy, and of
these, nearly 63% were unwanted or unintended. This points to inadequate
information and access to SRH services for this age group. In girls aged 15­19
years, 22.2% had an unmet need for contraception, according to NFHS­4.
○ Girls are still marrying too young — 26.8% of women aged 20­24 years are
married before they turn 18, often having their first child within the first year of
marriage.
○ gender based violence and harmful practices that are socially sanctioned. All
of these practices are rooted in social norms, beliefs and practices that deny
women their bodily autonomy.
● India has slipped 28 places to rank 140th among 156 countries, becoming the
third worst performer in South Asia in The World Economic Forum’s (WEF)
Global Gender Gap Report (2021).
● placing youth, women and girls at the centre of policy making and services could
trigger a positive ripple effect. If young people, and adolescent girls in particular, have
access to education, relevant skills, information and services to make healthy
choices, including related to SRH, are empowered to exercise their rights, and have
access to opportunities for employment, then India will be on a clear path to achieve
its goals.
● When women can make informed choices about their sexual and reproductive health,
and when they have access to services to support their choices, societies are
healthier and more productive.

‘No plans for two child policy’

● The Centre has denied having a two child policy, a question that has gained
resonance following the Uttar Pradesh government’s draft policy under which it
proposes to disincentive those with more than two children and even bar them from
government benefits.
● The Centre has been implementing the National Family Planning Programme, which
provides voluntary and informed choices to all citizens regardless of their religion or
sects through a target free approach with the objective of checking population growth
in the country.
● India’s national population policy was framed in 2000 with the long term objective of
attaining “population stabilisation” by 2045.
○ Mission Parivar Vikas : include access to contraceptives and family
planning services in 146 high fertility districts in seven high focus States,
expanding contraceptive choices by making condoms, combined oral
contraceptive pills, emergency contraceptive pills, intrauterine contraceptive
device (IUCDs) and sterilisation more accessible. A scheme to compensate
those who undergo voluntary sterilisation for any loss of wages and for the
service provider and team for conducting sterilisation
○ India’s total fertility rate had declined from 2.7 to 2.2 from 2005­-06 (NFHS III)
to 2015­16 (NFHS IV); 28 out of 36 States and Union Territories have already
achieved the replacement level fertility of 2.1 or less and the Crude Birth Rate
has declined from 23.8 to 20.0 from 2005 to 2018.
● International Conference on Population and Development, Cairo, 1994, to which
India is a signatory, is unequivocally against coercion in family planning
● International experience had shown that any coercion or diktat to have a certain
number of children was counter­productive
○ led to demographic distortions like sex selective abortions, abandonment of
the female child and even female infanticide due to intense son preference,
all of which eventually resulted in a skewed sex ratio
Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes
Scheduled Castes
Scheduled castes are those castes which are notified as Scheduled Castes as per
provisions contained in Article 341 of the Constitution.
● They suffer from extreme social, educational and economic backwardness
arising out of age-old practice of untouchability
● Socio-economic Inequality and Social Exclusion

Facts about SCs / STs / OBCs

Scheduled Tribes
Article 366 (25) of the Constitution of India defines Scheduled Tribes as "such tribes or
tribal communities or parts of or groups within such tribes or tribal communities as are
deemed under Article 342 to be Scheduled Tribes for the purposes of this constitution”.
The characteristics of these communities are:
● Primitive Traits, Geographical isolation, Distinct culture, Shy of contact with
community at large, Economically backward
Issues related with them:
● socially and economically disadvantaged.
● They constitute a large proportion of agricultural labourers, casual labourers,
plantation labourers, industrial labourers.
● poorest strata of the society and have low levels of education, poor health and
reduced access to healthcare services
● Loss of forests, alienation of land and repeated displacement have further made
their position vulnerable
Other Backward Classes (OBCs)
● such backward classes of citizens other than the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled
Tribes as may be specified by the Central Government from time to time for purposes
of making provision for the reservation of appointments or posts in favour of
backward classes of citizens

Schemes for Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes/ Other Backward Classes

Stand-Up India Scheme
facilitates bank loans between Rs 10 lakh and Rs 1 Crore to at least one Scheduled Caste
(SC) or Scheduled Tribe (ST) borrower and at least one woman borrower per bank branch
for setting up a greenfield enterprise.

Specific Schemes for Scheduled Castes

Scheduled Caste Sub-Plan (SCSP)

Under the strategy, States/UTs are required to formulate and implement Special
Component Plan (SCP) for Scheduled Castes as part of their Annual Plans by earmarking
resources.

Pradhan Mantri Adarsh Gram Yojana

This Centrally Sponsored Scheme is being implemented for integrated development of
Scheduled Castes (SC) majority villages having SC Population concentration more than
50%:
● Primarily through convergent implementation of the relevant Central and State
Schemes
● By providing these villages Central Assistance in form of gap-filling funds to the
extent of Rs.20.00 lakh per village

Specific Schemes for Scheduled Tribes

Special Central Assistance to Tribal Sub Plan (SCA to TSP)

The Special Central Assistance (SCA) is provided by the Ministry of tribal Affairs to the State
Government as an additive to the State TSP. SCA is Primarily meant for family-oriented
income-generation schemes in sectors of agriculture, horticulture, sericulture and
animal husbandry cooperation.

Van Dhan Yojana

Eklavya Model Residential School

STATE OF THE WORLD’S INDIGENOUS PEOPLES

● Indigenous peoples are inheritors and practitioners of unique cultures and ways of
relating to people and the environment.
● They have retained social, cultural, economic and political characteristics that are
distinct from those of the dominant societies in which they live.
● Indigenous peoples in India comprise an estimated population of 104 million or 8.6%
of the national population, almost 90% of them living in rural areas.
● 705 ethnic groups are notified as Scheduled Tribes (STs), .
● PVTGs
○ 75 identified PVTGs in 19 states and UTs
○ Categorised by MoHA, while MoTA implements scheme for development of
PVTGs
○ Pre-agricultural level of technology, Illiteracy, Economic Backwardness,
declining or stagnant population
● Inherent rights of indigenous peoples:
 ○ Collective and individual right to their ancestral land, territories and resources
also,
○ To self-government by their own institutions and authorities
○ To fair and equitable benefit sharing from conservation and development
actions involving their lands, territories, resources, and people
○ To conserve, develop, use and protect their traditional knowledge

Challenges for indigenous people in India

● Lack of access to education: due to their geographic and politically marginalized
status
● Health challenges
● Human rights violation: most often for defending their rights and their lands,
communities etc.
● Development induced displacement of people and lack of proper rehabilitation
● Indigenous traditional knowledge erosion, loss and threats
● Forest issue
● Legal loopholes and poor enforcement of existing safeguards, bureaucratic apathy
and corporate neglect of human rights of these indigenous people
Measures needs to be taken
● Education: Community-based education and language programs, adequate funding
from the state, curriculum development with the help of the indigenous communities
● Health care: right to access, without any discrimination, to all social and health
services
● Implementation of laws: effectively implement the Forest Rights Act, the LARR Act
and acquire prior consent of the concerned tribal communities in line with
international human rights standards before undertaking any infrastructure
development and mining plans and projects in tribal areas.
● accessible and affordable mechanisms for the purposes of settling relevant disputes.
Provisions in India to protect rights of indigenous people
● Fifth Schedule of Constitution of India (Article 244)
○ Declaration of Scheduled Areas with President of India in consultation with
governor of the state concerned.
○ Tribes Advisory Council
○ Law applicable to Scheduled Areas with governor empowered to direct that
any particular act of Parliament or the state legislature does not apply to a
scheduled area.
● Sixth Schedule of the Constitutions
● Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition,
Rehabilitation & Resettlement (LARR) Act, 2013
○ consent of 80% land owners required for private projects, 70% land owners
required for Public-Private Partnership projects and no consent is required for
government projects.
○ exempts 13 laws (such as the National Highways Act, 1956 and the Railways
Act, 1989) from its ambit.
○ If land acquired under the Act remains unutilised for five years from taking
possession, it must be returned to the original owners or a land bank.
○ option of employment to one member of an affected family as part of the
rehabilitation and resettlement award.
 ○ establishment of a Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (LARR)
Authority which may be approached in case a person is not satisfied with an
award under the Act.
● Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest
Rights) Act, 2006

Senior Citizens/Aged
who has attained the age of sixty years or above.
The vulnerability among the elderly is due to an increased incidence of illness and
disability, economic dependency upon their spouses, children and other younger family
members.

Schemes

Pradhan Mantri Vaya Vandana Yojana

to provide social security during old age and to protect elderly persons aged 60 and
above against a future fall in their interest income due to uncertain market conditions.

Rashtriya Vayoshri Yojana

a Central Sector Scheme for providing Physical Aids and Assisted-living Devices for
Senior citizens belonging to BPL category. The expenditure for implementation of the
scheme will be met from the "Senior Citizens' Welfare Fund".
implemented through the sole implementing agency - Artificial Limbs Manufacturing
Corporation (ALIMCO), a PSU under the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment.

Indira Gandhi National Old Age Pension Scheme (IGNOAPS)

This is a non-contributory pension scheme launched by the Central government to
provide pensions to persons who are 60 years or above and belong to below poverty line
(BPL) category.

New India Strategy@75 : Inclusion-Senior Citizens

Objectives
 ● To ensure a life of dignity, social security and safety for senior citizens, enabling
them to actively participate in economic development and the nation building
process.
Current Situation
● Share of the elderly population 8.6%(2011), expected to increase to 20% of the
population by 2050
● Government Steps : PM Vaya Vandana Yojana, Vayoshri Yojana
Constraints
● Poverty and lack of economic security
● Rapid emergence of nuclear families
● Shortage of well trained personnel for delivering care giving and other services
for senior citizens
Way Forward
● Revise the NP for Older Persons to cover housing, income security, pension
and access to healthcare
● Bring schemes pertaining to senior citizens under the restructured Dept. of
Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities and Senior Citizens
● Establish an old age home in every district by 2020
● Prioritise supply of aids and assistive devices for senior citizens below the
poverty line
● Ensure a barrier free environment in all public buildings, parks etc. for the
elderly
● Strengthen the National Institute of Social Defence and Regional Resource
Training Centres to meet the rising demand for quality caregivers

ELDERLY POPULATION IN INDIA

● According to the Population Census 2011 there are nearly 104 million elderly persons
(aged 60 years or above) in India; 53 million females and 51 million males.
● A report released by the United Nations Population Fund and HelpAge India
suggests that the number of elderly persons is expected to grow to 173 million by
2026.
● 71% of elderly population resides in rural areas while 29 % is in urban areas.
Challenges Faced by elderly population
● Ageist stereotypes: Stereotyping (how we think), prejudice (how we feel) and
discrimination (how we act) towards people on the basis of their age, ageism, affects
people of all ages but has particularly deleterious effects on the health and well-being
of older people.
○ marginalizes older people within their communities, reduces their access to
services, including health and social care
● Changing Family Structure
● Lack of Social Support
● Medical Problem: It is often claimed that senior citizens are accompanied by
multiple illness and physical ailments. Also mental illness.
● Availability, Accessibility and Affordability of Health Care
● Psychological Problems: The common psychological problems that most of the
senior citizens experiences are: feeling of powerlessness, feeling of inferiority,
depression, uselessness, isolation and reduced competence.
● Lack of old age homes
Disabled Persons
UN Declaration on the Rights of Disabled Persons (1975): “Any person unable to ensure
by himself or herself, wholly or partly the necessities of a normal individual and or social life
as a result of a deficiency either congenital or not in his/her physical or mental abilities” could
be described as disabled.
Majority (69%) of the disabled population resided in rural areas.
Disabled people are more likely to live in poverty, more likely to be unemployed, more
likely to face discrimination in the workplace. These barriers are social, not personal,
and cannot be “overcome” through sheer force of will.
● They have reduced access to education, employment and other
socio-economic opportunities.
● They are faced with stigma and discrimination from the society where they live.
● They may find it hard to socialize with members of the society which can lead to
depression as well as self-pity.
● At the all India level, only 36% of the total disabled persons are workers. Major
issues faced are access to and within workplace, harassment and discrimination at
work, and lack of positive attitude towards PWDs.
● Poverty and disability reinforce one another: Poor health and nutrition, poor living
conditions, poor access to health services, lack of care given to pregnant mothers
etc. among persons living in poverty can lead to disability.
● Disabled people are often considered weak, worthless and in some cases
subhuman by their societies.
● Barriers to healthcare and assistive technology: including prohibitive cost, limited
availability of services, physical barrier, inadequate skills and knowledge of health
workers etc.
● Accessibility barriers: Design and construction of indoor and outdoor facilities can
prevent them from going to school and hospitals
● Communicational Barriers
Facts about Disabled Persons
● As per census 2011 (2016 updated), in India, the percentage of disabled
population is about 2.21 per cent.

Schemes
Accessible India Campaign (Sugamya Bharat Abhiyan)
The campaign targets at enhancing the accessibility of the built environment, transport
system and Information & communication ecosystem.
Components of Accessible India Campaign:
● Built Environment Accessibility
● Transportation System Accessibility
● Information and Communication Eco-System Accessibility
Deendayal Disabled Rehabilitation Scheme
to provide financial assistance to voluntary organizations to make available the whole
range of services necessary for rehabilitation of persons with disabilities including
early intervention, development of daily living skills, education, skill-development
oriented towards employability, training and awareness generation.

New India Strategy @ 75 - Persons with Disability

Objectives
● To create opportunities for and empower PwDs to realize their potential and live a
productive and dignified life.
Current Situation
● 2.68 crore PwDs(2.21%) as per Census 2011
● Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016
● 27% of disabled children never attended education
● Only 15% of the disabled population in the 15-59 years category working
Constraints
● Accurate identification - a major problem
● A lack of appropriately disaggregated data for PwDs generated at regular
intervals
● Disability related issues require multi-sectoral action, which has been difficult to
achieve in practice
Way Forward
● Attitudinal Change: By not considering disability a personal deficit or shortcoming,
and instead thinking of it as a social responsibility in which all people can be
supported to live independent and full lives.
● Generate data on PwDs
○ Disaggregate data by sex, age and socioeconomic status
● Bolster the institutional architecture and policy framework
○ Reorient the DEPwD to focus on data collection, identifying gaps and
evaluating the impact of various schemes
○ Bring programmes under the preview of the relevant line ministries
○ Earmark at least 5% of the total budget of social sector ministries for schemes
for PwDs.
● Education
○ Provide special education training to teachers, Make schools more
inclusive,
○ Enhance scholarship to students with disabilities
○ Develop indicators for rating schools on inclusivity, disabled friendly sports,
cultural and technical programmes in schools and colleges
● Healthcare
○ Provide aids and assistive devices to at least 3 lakh beneficiaries very
year.
○ Conduct cochlear implant and corrective surgeries for 5000 children annually
○ Set up early diagnostic and intervention centres at the district level to
screen children and identify special needs or requirements for assistive
devices at an early stages
● Employment & Skill Generation
○ Establish dedicated training centres for PwDs.
○ Integrate initiatives of various ministries to provide skill training, soft
loans and entrepreneurship opportunities to PwDs.
● Institutional Strengthening
○

● Accessibility and Inclusivity

○ Make the accessible India campaign a mass movement
○ Conduct awareness programmes
○ Incorporate universal design & accessibility standards in engineering,
architecture & computer science studies
Minorities
The Constitution of India does not define the term “minorities” anywhere but only mentions it
in some Articles 29 to 30 and 350A to 350B. Article 29 referring to minorities speaks of
“any section of citizens having a distinct language, script and culture”. Article 30
speaks about two categories of minorities – religious and linguistic – while Article 350
relates to linguistic minorities.
Schemes for Welfare of Minorities

Pradhan Mantri Jan Vikas Karyakaram

seeks to provide better socio-economic infrastructure facilities to the minority
communities particularly in the field of education, health & skill development which
would further lead to lessening of the gap between the national average and the
minority communities with regard to backwardness parameters.

Nai Roshni
envisaged to reach out to women through non-governmental organizations who will be
provided with financial support for conducting leadership development trainings

Seekho aur Kamao

for Skill Development of Minorities.

Minority Cyber Gram (MCG)

seeks to introduce digital literacy skills in identified minority clusters in India through
designated Digital Fellows towards knowledge empowerment

USTAAD
The Scheme aims at upgrading Skills and Training in preservation of traditional
Ancestral Arts/Crafts of minorities

LGBT Community
LGBT persons have historically faced and continue to face discrimination and violence
around the world. According to 2011 census, almost six lakh transgender people live in
India.
they continue to face various issues like-
● Social discrimination, deprivation of liberty, lack of employment and
educational opportunities, limited access to health care etc.
● Forced or bonded labour, denial of use of a public place, denial of residence in
household, village
● Physical, sexual, verbal, emotional and economic abuse

Initiatives by Government/Judiciary to Promote Interests of LGBT Community in India

● The Supreme Court in NALSA case recognised transgender as a legal third gender
and called on the government to ensure their equal treatment.
● It also provided for avenues of reservation within the OBC quota to this ‘marginalised’
section
● Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019
● As per Census 2011, India had 4.87 lakh transgender persons.
Way Forward
● Provide for identification of transgender in all government and non-government
records
● Sensitise communities towards the challenges and needs of transgender persons.
● Create a forum for the active participation of transgender persons at all levels of
governance.
● Put in place institutional mechanisms to effectively implement programmes for
transgender persons.
● Determine the number of transgender persons and map their socio-economic status
● Mandate the provision of housing and community services to accommodate at least
50 % of transgender persons.
● Formulate and implement a scheme for establishing residential schools in all districts
for transgender persons.
● Design a scheme for providing skill and employability training to transgender
persons.
● Formulate a scheme to provide pensions to transgender persons above 60 years.

08/06/2021
Protect LGBTQIA+ community: Madras HC
● Empathising with the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual
and such others’ (LGBTQIA+) community, the Madras HC directed the MoSJ&E to
enlist non­governmental organisations (NGOs) that could provide counselling,
monetary support, legal assistance and protection to them until a law could be
enacted to protect them.
● upload the details of the NGOs, along with their address, contact details and the
services provided by them, on its website within eight weeks and revise the
information periodically.
● NGOs, in consultation with the Ministry, should maintain confidential records of such
persons who approached them and the aggregate data be submitted to the Ministry
bi­annually.
 ● NGOs should also coordinate with the police with respect to offences committed
against them.
● Garima Greh (shelter home for transgender persons) for providing accommodation,
food, medical care and recreational facilities to those from the community in need of
such assistance. The Ministry was directed to create the infrastructural requirements
within 12 weeks.
● Sensitisation programmes could also be conducted for stakeholders, including police
and prison authorities, judges, physical and mental health professionals, educational
institutions, health workers, public and private workplaces.
● We need both niti and nyaya for ensuring complete justice to the LGBTQIA+
community.
● Need to enhance their political voice.

Transgender persons’ bid to break new ground

● Several members of the community have applied for the job of sub-inspector in
Odisha.
● When the Odisha government came up with an advertisement last month to appoint
transgender persons as sub­inspectors of police, the community considered it an
opportunity to change the societal perception about them. For a total of 477 SI posts,
1,32,496 candidates have applied. Of them, 97,506 are males and 34,964 females
while 26 belong to the transgender community.
● Not so long ago, Pratima Behera, a 22­year transgender, faced abuses and scurried
for cover as baton­wielding policemen chased her at a railway station in Jamshedpur,
Jharkhand, where she begged for survival.
● Now, she has filled out applications to become police officers in Odisha. From
undertaking hour­long running to practising yoga and from brushing up general
knowledge and English language skills to meditating, these two transgender
aspirants and their likes are fully occupied all through the day at Sundarpada locality
of Bhubaneswar. They seem to be on a mission to prove themselves.
● Not many in our community can plan their future on the basis of their qualifications.
There are very few employers for us in the job market,” said Kalpana.
● Pratima said the prospect of joining the police force was a once in a once­in­a­lifetime
opportunity for her, especially after she was forced to flee home and beg for survival
just to evade the mocking eyes of her own family members.
● This is the first permanent, dignified job offered to transgender persons,” said Meera
Parida, a transgender activist who heads an NGO, Sakhaa, that works on
mainstreaming the transgender community. She is mentoring the transgender
candidates for cracking the police job.

Poor Persons
Poor persons face a number of problems due to their incapacity to afford resources be it –
healthcare, education, entertainment, better quality of life or anything else. This causes them
to live in a vicious cycle of poverty where due to less money at their disposal they are not
able to get better education which leads to them lending into low wages jobs or being
unemployed which in turn perpetuates their poverty and they are not able to get out of the
poverty trap.
Schemes for Poor Persons
MGNREGA
flagship employment generation programme of the Government. It has been instrumental in
creating employment opportunities and placing additional income in the hands of the poor
and the disadvantaged sections of society who volunteer to do unskilled work with an
entitlement of 100 days of wage employment to each registered rural household every
financial year.
Salient Features
● statutory minimum wage
● Strong social safety net for the vulnerable groups
● Sustainable development of an agricultural economy employment on works that
address drought, deforestation and soil erosion, water and soil conservation,
afforestation and land development works
● At least one-third beneficiaries shall be women.
● Social audit has to be done by the gram sabha.
weaknesses found in implementation of MGNREGA
● Though the MGNREGA Act is Panchayat centric and demand based, on the ground,
there is a lack of principal role in planning by the Gram Sabha/Gram Panchayat.
● The programme is being implemented in a supply driven mode and there is a lack of
panchayat driven selection of work.
● There are also cases of procedures being not fully followed, lack of proper planning
and some ill-conceived projects.

Recent Initiatives for Improving Monitoring of Various Schemes

● There has been a shift to a sector-wide approach as opposed to creating
schemes in silos, uniting similar schemes and a greater role for states in
implementation which has enhanced the efficacy of schemes.
● Bottlenecks in delivery have also been addressed with the increased use of
technology in monitoring (Garv and Swachh Bharat dashboards), fixing
accountability (PRAGATI) and broadening public interaction (MyGoV).
● Proactive communication, including the prime minister’s involvement through
social media and his radio programme, has increased awareness about and
participation in many welfare schemes.
The core administrative and governance inefficiencies in social protection programs
should be addressed to improve the impact of economic growth on social and welfare
indicators. This can be achieved without large enhancement of social welfare budgets
and also lead to improved efficiency.

Mechanisms, laws, institutions and Bodies constituted for the protection and
betterment of these vulnerable sections
Mechanisms Existing in India for Vulnerable Sections
Various mechanisms to ensure social justice to vulnerable section are following-
● Various Schemes launched by government and their implementing agencies
 ● Various laws passed by legislative bodies
● Various Policies brought by the Government
● Various Bodies established for the welfare of these groups
● Judiciary to seek enforcement of rights of these groups and to seek justice against
crime

Laws Pertaining to Betterment of Vulnerable Sections

Children
Constitutional Provisions
● Article 15(3): States can make special provisions for betterment of children.
● Article 21 A: State to provide free and compulsory education of all children in the age
group of six to fourteen years
● Article 23: Right to being protected from being trafficked and forced into bonded
labour
● Article 24: Prohibition of employment of children below the age of 14 years of age in
factories
● Article 45: The state to provide early childhood care and education for all children
until they complete the age of six years
Legislations Related to Children
● Child Labour (Prohibition & Regulation) Act, 1986
● The Pre-conception & Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques (Regulation and
Prevention of Misuse) Act, 1994 (PCPNDT Act, 1994)
● Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015- It provides for
strengthened provisions for both children in need of care and protection and children
in conflict with law
○ inclusion of several new definitions such as orphaned, abandoned and
surrendered children and petty, serious and heinous offences committed by
children;
○ clarity in powers, function and responsibilities of Juvenile Justice Board
(JJB) and Child Welfare Committee (CWC)
○ clear timelines for inquiry by Juvenile Justice Board (JJB);
○ separate new chapter on Adoption to streamline adoption of orphan,
abandoned and surrendered children;

● Protection of Children from Sexual offences Act, 2012

● Commissions for Protection of the Rights of the Child Act, 2005 : It establishes
the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights.
● Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006 : According to the act a child is a male who
has not completed twenty one years of age and a female who has not completed
eighteen years of age.
● National Policy on Children 2013 : As children’s needs are multi-sectoral,
interconnected and require collective action, the Policy calls for purposeful
convergence and coordination across different sectors and levels of governance.
 ○ The Policy has identified four key priority areas: survival, health and
nutrition; education and development; protection and participation, for
focused attention.

Women
Constitutional Provisions
● Article 15(3): State can make special provisions for women
● Article 23: Right to being protected from being trafficked and forced into bonded
labour
● Article 39 (a): State to ensure that, men and women equally, have the right to an
adequate means to livelihood
● Article 39 (d): State to ensure equal pay to women for equal work
● Article 42: Provision for just and humane conditions of work and maternity relief.
● Article 243 D: Provides for reservation of seats in Panchayats at all levels to
women.
Legislations Related to Women
● Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act, 2017 - Provides for paid maternity leaves of
26 months
● Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961— To end dowry by providing penal provisions.
● Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act 1986 – Penal provisions for trafficking of women
● Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act 1986 – To protect dignity of
women
● National Commission of Women Act 1990 – Establishes National Commission of
Women
● Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 – To protect women from
domestic violence
● Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace Act, 2013 – It addresses workplace
sexual harassment.

Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes

Constitutional Provisions
● Article 15(4): State can make special provisions for SCs/STs
● Article 16(4): State can make provision for reservation of appointments/posts for
SC/STs
● Article 17: Abolishes Untouchability and its practice in any form
● Article 46: Promotion of educational and economic interests of SCs, STs and the
weaker sections
● Article 243 D: Reservation of seats in Panchayats for SC/ST candidates
● Article 275: Special grant in aids to states for tribal welfare.
 ● Article 330 and Article 332 of the Constitution respectively provide for reservation of
seats in favour of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes in the House of
the People and in the legislative assemblies of the states.
Legislations Related to SCs, STs and OBCs
● Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955 – It provides for penal provisions for
untouchability
● SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 –It is aimed at atrocities against the
members of the SCs and STs
● Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976 – Outlaws bonded labour
● Forest Rights Act 2006 - recognizes the rights to hold and live in the forest land
● Provisions of the Panchayats (Extension to the scheduled Areas) Act, 1996 -- It
is an Act to provide for the extension of the provisions of Part IX of the Constitution
relating to the Panchayats to the Scheduled Areas.

Senior Citizens/ Aged

Constitutional Provisions
● Article 41: The State to protect the rights of old age persons particularly social
security.
Legislation Related to Aged/Senior Citizens
● Maintenance and Welfare Of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007 : Obligation
of children to maintain his/her parents so that such parent may lead a normal life
● National Policy on Senior Citizens 2011-
○ Awareness generation for the Maintenance of Parents and Senior Citizens
Act, 2007
○ Setting up a helpline for senior citizens
○ Establishing a National Commission for Senior Citizens
○ Establishing a National Trust for the Aged

Disabled Persons
Constitutional Provisions
● The Preamble, Article 14, Article 21 and DPSP(Article 41) provide the right to
equality, justice and dignity of all individuals leading to an inclusive
development which also includes the Disabled Persons.
Legislations Enacted for Disabled Persons
● Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act 2016
● Mental Healthcare Act 2017

Minorities
Constitutional Provisions
● Preamble: Justice – social, economic, political to all its citizens
● Articles 14,15 and 16 : Guarantee right to equality and prohibits discrimination
● Article 25-28 : Right to Freedom of Religion
● Article 29: Right to preserve language script and culture and that they will not be
denied admission to an educational institutions based on their race, language,
religion or caste
● Article 30: The right to establish and administer educational institutions and
prohibition on any discrimination in matters of granting aids to such institutions by the
State
Laws Related to Minorities
● National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions Act, 2004 -- This act
allows direct affiliation of minority educational institutes to central universities. This
act was enacted in order to provide quality education in minority institutes.
● National Commission for Minorities

Institutions and Bodies for the betterment of these vulnerable sections

Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment

to ensure equitable treatment to such sections of society which has suffered social
inequalities, exploitation, discrimination and injustice.

Children
National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR)
a statutory body created under Commissions for Protection of Child Rights (CPCR) Act,
2005 to exercise and perform the powers and functions assigned to it under CPCR Act,
2005. Its mission is to ensure that all laws, policies, programmes and administrative
mechanisms are in consonance with the child rights perspective as enshrined in the
Constitution of India as well as in, the United Nation Convention on the Rights of the Child,
which India ratified in 1992.
various functions under following laws and rules-
● CPCR Act, 2005
● Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education(RTE) Act, 2009
● Protection of Children from Sexual Offences(POCSO) Act : POSCO e-Box.
The functions and powers of the National Commission are following:
● Examine and review the legal safeguards provided by or under any law for the
protection of child rights and recommend measures for their effective implementation
● Inquire into violation of child rights and recommend initiation of proceedings in such
cases
● Spread awareness about child rights among various sections of society
● Undertake and promote research in the field of child rights
● Inspect institutions meant for juvenile/children
● Inquire into complaints of deprivation and violation of child rights, non-implementation
of laws and non-compliance with policy decisions, guidelines or instructions
● The Commission has the power of a civil court and all criminal cases brought to
the same has to be forwarded to a concerned Magistrate who has jurisdiction
to try the same.

National Institute of Public Cooperation and Child Development (NIPCCD)

● a premier organisation devoted to promotion of voluntary action research, training
and documentation in the overall domain of women and child development.
● an apex institution for training functionaries of the Integrated Child
Development Services (ICDS) programme.
Central Adoption Resource Authority
 ● a statutory body of the Ministry of Women & Child Development, Government of
India. It functions as the nodal body for adoption of Indian children and is
mandated to monitor and regulate in-country and inter-country adoptions.
Child Welfare Committees
● designated by Juvenile Justice Act, 2015 as the final district-level authorities for
the care, protection, treatment, development and rehabilitation of Children in
Need of Care and Protection (CNCP). CWCs thus have the sole authority to deal
with matters concerning CNCP and are bestowed with the powers of a first class
judicial magistrate.
Child Care Institution
● defined under the Juvenile Justice Act, 2015, means Children Home, Open Shelter,
Observation Home, Special Home, Place of Safety, Specialised Adoption Agency
and a Fit Facility recognized under the Act for providing care and protection to
children, who are in need of such services. Children in conflict with law are
provided residential care and protection in Observation Homes, Special Homes
and Places of Safety.
8th June, 2021
SC urged to stop illegal adoption
● NCPCR sounded the alarm on a spate of complaints about illegal adoption of COVID
orphans through private individuals and organisations.
● Social media posts are circulating that children are up for adoption. This is plainly
illegal and violates the Juvenile Justice Act.
● The adoption of orphaned/abandoned/ surrendered children is lawful only after the
adoption procedure as given under the Juvenile Justice Act, 2015 is followed and the
final adoption order is passed by the prescribed authority.
● The national child rights body said information about these children, including their
personal details, are being leaked from within government sources to private bodies,
which circulate them.
Adoption provisions in India

Challenges in child adoption

● The number of Indian adults registered with CARA has more than doubled, yet the
number of adoptions has more or less steadily dipped
● Stigma surrounding adoption: Many prospective parents are usually not very
comfortable as they want “their genes, blood and lineage in their child.
 ● Preference of prospective parents
● Discriminatory adoption rules: The online form for adoption does not have a third
option, other than male and female. The rules do not allow sexual minorities to legally
adopt children.
● Rigidity in adoption rules: The pan-India platform for adoption CARINGS doesn’t
give much choice to parents to adopt kids from the same state.
● Administrative challenges: Many districts lack an authorised adoption agency even
though they are legally mandated. Furthermore, many childcare centres are not
registered with child welfare committees (CWC). Children in these centres cannot be
adopted
Steps taken to ease the child adoption
● CARA reduced the wait period
● Online registration portal CARINGS: Through Child Adoption Resource Information
and Guidance System (CARINGS) all prospective parents could access one list of
children available for adoption across states.
● Child Protection Services (CPS) scheme: The scheme establishes a District Child
Protection Unit to identify orphan, abandoned and surrendered children in the district
and get them declared legally free for adoption by the Child Welfare Committee.
● The 2021 amendment bill to the JJ Act, 2015: It empowers District Magistrates (DMs)
and Additional DMs to authorise orders of adoption and proposes that appeals on the
orders of adoption are referred to a Divisional Commissioner.

SCs/STs/OBCs
National Commission for SCs
under Article 338
following duties and functions:
● To investigate and monitor all matters relating to the safeguards provided for the
Scheduled Castes under the Constitution or under any other law for the time being in
force or under any order of the Government and to evaluate the working of such
safeguards;
● To inquire into specific complaints with respect to the deprivation of rights and
safeguards of the Scheduled Castes;
National SC Finance and Development Corporation (NSFDC)
under Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment, Government of India for financing,
facilitating and mobilizing funds for the economic empowerment of persons
belonging to the Scheduled Castes families
Financing income generating schemes for the SCs through the State Channelizing Agencies
(SCAs) and other recognized institutions nominated by the respective State /UT
Governments.
Providing grants for skill development programmes through the SCAs.
National Safai Karamcharis Finance Development Corporation (NSKFDC)
functions as an Apex institution for channelising the funds to Safai Karamcharis/ Scavengers
and their dependents through the State Channelising Agencies.
It has been designated as the Nodal Agency for implementation of the Central Sector Self
Employment Scheme for Rehabilitation of Manual Scavengers (SRMS) under the aegis
of the Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment.

National Commission for STs

established by amending Article 338 and inserting a new Article 338A in the Constitution
through the Constitution (89th Amendment) Act, 2003.

National Commission for Socially and Educationally Backward Classes

under Article 338B for socially and educationally backward classes. Definition of socially
and educationally backward classes: Insertion of Clause (26C) under Article 366 to define
“socially and educationally backward classes” as such backward classes deemed so under
Article 342A.
hear the grievances of socially and educationally backward classes

National Backward Classes Finance and Development Corporation (NBCFDC)

to promote economic and developmental activities for the benefit of Backward Classes and
to assist the poorer section of these classes in skill development and self-employment
ventures. NBCFDC provides financial assistance through State Channelising Agencies
(SCAs).

National Commission for Minorities

Established by the National Commission for Minorities Act, 1992 to protect minority rights
in the country, the commission consists of one chairperson and six members
representing the six minor communities – Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists, Christians, Parsis
and Jains.
The Commission performs various functions including evaluating the development of
minority communities under Union and States, ensuring the safeguard of minority rights as
per the Constitutional laws and other legislations, conducting studies and researches on the
matters related to minorities and suggesting measures to Government on these aspects.
acts as grievance redressal forum for persons belonging to minority communities. This
Commission functions as a civil court in the matters

Commissioner for Linguistic Minorities

set up in 1957 to comply with Article 350B of the Constitution. It takes up grievances of
linguistic minorities and submits annual reports to the government.

National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions

● set up in 2004.
 ● It can look into any complaints relating to violation and deprivation of rights of
minorities to establish and administer educational institutions of their choice.
● a quasi-judicial body and has been endowed with the powers of a Civil Court.
● headed by a Chairman who has been a Judge of the High Court and three members
are to be nominated by the Central Government.
● So far as affiliation of a minority educational institution to a university is concerned,
the decision of the Commission would be final.
Disabled Persons
Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (Divyangjan)
The Department acts as a Nodal Agency for matters pertaining to disability and Persons with
Disabilities. The Department has the vision to build an inclusive society in which equal
opportunities are provided for the growth and development of Persons with Disabilities so
that they can lead productive, safe and dignified lives.
National Handicapped Finance and Development Corporation (NHFDC)

Rehabilitation Council of India

The Rehabilitation Council of India is a statutory body set up under the Rehabilitation
Council of India Act, 1992. The Council is responsible for regulating the training policies
and programmes for various categories of professionals in the area of rehabilitation and
special education.

National Council for Senior Citizens

headed by the Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment
The mandate of the National Council of Senior Citizens is to advise the Central and State
Governments on the entire gamut of issues related to the welfare of senior citizens and
enhancement of their quality of life.
● Policies, programmes and legislative measures
● Promotion of physical and financial security, health and independent and productive
living
● Awareness generation and community mobilization.
Senior Citizen Welfare Fund
The Senior Citizen Welfare Fund has been established by the Government to promote
financial security of senior citizens, old age pension, healthcare, health insurance and
welfare of elderly widows.
SOCIAL SECURITY FOR INFORMAL WORKERS
● The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the gaps in India’s social security policies,
specifically towards informal workers.
Social Security & its significance
● based on the recognition of human dignity and social justice guaranteed by law to all
human beings who live from their own labour - Article 41 & 42
● guarantee income security and health protection in any adverse event.
● In India, The Code on Social Security 2020 defines social security as "the measures
of protection afforded to employees, unorganised workers, gig workers and platform
workers to ensure access to health care and to provide income security, particularly
in cases of old age, unemployment, sickness etc.
● Socio-economic justice & equality in the society
● Ensure decent living conditions for all
● Economic development
● Improves productivity and employability of labour.
● Social cohesion, Social peace
Informality in Indian labour market and access to social security benefits
● 90% of the total workforce is engaged in informal employment in 2018-19.
● In terms of social security provisions, only 26% were eligible for one or a combination
of social security benefits like Provident Fund, healthcare benefits, maternity benefits
etc.
● Estimates suggest that up to 80% of workers lost their jobs during the entire COVID
lockdown.
Challenges in access to social security for informal workers
● Gaps in the Code on Social Security, 2020:
○ Lack of a minimum benefit policy at the national level - benefits, such as
pension and medical insurance, continue to be mandatory only for
establishments with a minimum number of employees (such as 10 or 20
employees). It results in exclusion of substantial informal workforce from
social security net
○ Lack of accountability: The registration of unorganised workers is the
responsibility of the district administration, but there is no provision to hold
them accountable for delayed registration.
● Other gaps across the schemes:
○ Fragmented administration systems: Social security schemes are run by
multiple ministries and departments at Union and State level. Separate
beneficiary databases are maintained under each such scheme
○ Exclusion errors: Introduction of Aadhaar card for authentication,
digitalisation of welfare system, human errors in entering records and poor
internet connectivity in certain areas among others led to exclusion of many
eligible beneficiaries.
○ Low awareness among beneficiaries: Majority of informal workers are
illiterate and hence unaware about the social security benefits available to
them.
● Challenges highlighted by COVID:
○ Crippled financial inclusion infrastructure: In many rural areas and remote
locations, the working of Direct Benefit Transfers (DBT) depends on Business
Correspondents or Bank Mitras. However, due to travel restrictions during the
pandemic
○ in the case of inter-state migration of workers, it was unclear which state will
be required to pay for migrant workers’ social security benefits- the ‘source’
state or the ‘destination’ state.
 ○ Ensuring sustainable livelihood amid reverse migration
Way forward
● Ensuring a minimum social security net for all workers irrespective of wage,
enterprise size, and place of origin - SDG target 1.3 calls for the implementation of
nation- wide social protection floors.
● Need for a robust monitoring and enforcement mechanism to ensure compliance to
labour legislations
● Creating a common database of informal workers
● Streamlining registration process of informal workers - A decentralised system of
registration and service delivery can improve the enrolment of eligible beneficiaries in
different social protection schemes.
● Creating awareness about entitlements
● Moving beyond the traditional conceptions of work which rely on stable
employee-employer associations. For example, in the case of street vendors, since
there is no employer that controls their labour market transactions and space of work,
functional substitutes such as municipality where they work, can be a potential
replacement.

Eradicating Poverty
In 2011, 268 million people were surviving on less than $1.90 a day, the World Bank
measure for extreme poverty. According to the World Data Lab — which monitors global
poverty using advanced statistical models — less than 50 million Indians may be living
on less than $1.90 a day now. Economists said rapid economic growth and the use of
technology for social sector programs have helped make a significant dent in extreme
poverty in the country.
Poverty is the general scarcity of a certain amount of material possessions or money (<
$1.25/day) and includes social, economic, and political concepts. Absolute poverty (as
defined by the UN) is “a condition characterized by severe deprivation of basic human
needs, including food, safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, health, shelter, education and
information.”
Every successive government, since 1947, has tried to reduce poverty by making various
policies. But, it is still far from satisfactory, for about half of the labor force working in the
agricultural sector and a majority of the population still living in rural areas.

Poverty Alleviation programs in India since Independence

● MGNREGA) 2005: The Act provides 100 days assured employment every year to
every rural household. One-third of the proposed jobs would be reserved for women.

● National Rural Livelihood Mission: Ajeevika (2011): It evolves out the need to
diversify the needs of the rural poor and provide them jobs with regular income on a
monthly basis. Self Help groups are formed at the village level to help the needy.

● National Urban Livelihood Mission: The NULM focuses on organizing urban poor
in Self Help Groups, creating opportunities for skill development leading to
market-based employment and helping them to set up self-employment ventures by
ensuring easy access to credit.

● Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana: It will focus on fresh entrants to the labour
market, especially labour market and class X and XII dropouts.

● Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana: It aimed at direct benefit transfer of subsidy,
pension, insurance etc. and attained the target of opening 1.5 crore bank accounts.
The scheme particularly targets the unbanked poor.

● National Old Age Pension Scheme (NOAPS): This pension is given by the central
government. The job of implementation of this scheme in states and union
territories is given to panchayats and municipalities.

● National Food Security Act, 2013

Challenges :
 ● India is still far from achieving SDG 1.

● Incidence of extreme poverty continues to be much higher in rural areas than in

urban areas.

● Despite rapid growth and development, an unacceptably high proportion of our

population continues to suffer from severe and multidimensional deprivation.

● While a large number of poverty alleviation programmes have been initiated, they
function in silos. There is no systematic attempt to identify people who are in
poverty, determine their needs, address them and enable them to move above
the poverty line.

● The resources allocated to anti-poverty programmes are inadequate and there

is a tacit understanding that targets will be curtailed according to fund availability. For
instance, MGNREGA does not provide the guaranteed 100 days of work in many
states.

● There is no method to ensure that programmes reach everybody they are

meant for.

● Lack of proper implementation and right targeting

● There has been a lot of overlapping of schemes.

● Every year a huge number is added to the population pool of the country. This
renders the scheme ineffective.

Way Forward

● Accelerating rural poverty reduction:

○ It’s not just about agricultural growth, which has long been considered the
key driver of poverty reduction. In fact, rural India is not predominantly
agricultural and shares many of the economic conditions of smaller urban
areas.
 ○ Capitalizing on growing connectivity between rural and urban areas, and
between the agriculture, industry and services sectors, has been effective in
the past two decades and holds promise for the future.

● Creating more and better jobs:

○ Future efforts will need to address job creation in more productive sectors,
which has until now been lukewarm and has yielded few salaried jobs that
offer stability and security.

● Focusing on women and Scheduled Tribes:-

○ The most worrying trends are the low participation of women in the labor
market and the slow progress among scheduled tribes.

○ India’s women have been withdrawing from the labor force since 2005
and less than one-third of working age women are now in the labor
force. As a result, India today ranks last among BRICS countries, and
close to the bottom in South Asia in female labor force participation.

● Creating more good locations:-

○ More and more of India’s poor are concentrated in the poorest states,
and even within relatively prosperous states, certain pockets of deprivation
persist where people are unable to share in the state’s successes.

● Improving human development outcomes for the poor:

○ The recent past shows that some problems, such as undernutrition and
open defecation, are endemic and not only confined to the poor but others
too, and have not improved with economic growth.

○ Better health, sanitation and education will not only help raise the
productivity of millions, they will also empower the people to meet their
aspirations, and provide the country with new drivers of economic growth.

● Banking and credit sector reforms.

 ● We need to start taxing wealth and not only income.

Poverty eradication should not be the goal of the government but the goal of the
government policies should be to create prosperity.

The indicator is based on the health and education status of a population apart from per
capita income, bringing us back to the relevance of income generation to poverty.

Some of the most challenging issues facing India today are poverty, development of rural
India and building infrastructure. We are a billion-strong country today and our human
capital is the biggest asset; it needs investment in health and education. We also need to
understand the concept of employment and the need for creating more employment in our
country.

No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the
members are poor and miserable. - Adam Smith

Providing minimum basic needs to the people and reduction of poverty have been the major
aims of independent India. The pattern of development that the successive five year plans
envisaged laid emphasis on the upliftment of the poorest of the poor (Antyodaya),
integrating the poor into the mainstream and achieving a minimum standard of living
for all.

While addressing the Constituent Assembly in 1947, Jawaharlal Nehru had said, “This
achievement (Independence) is but a step, an opening of opportunity, to the great triumphs
and achievements that await us… the ending of poverty and ignorance and disease and
inequality of opportunity.”

Poverty is not only a challenge for India, as more than one fifth of the world’s poor live in
India alone; but also for the world, where about 300 million people are not able to meet their
basic needs.
As poverty has many dimensions, it has to be looked at through a variety of indicators —
levels of income and consumption, social indicators, and indicators of vulnerability to
risks and of socio/political access.

WHO ARE THE POOR?

Push cart vendors, street cobblers, women who string flowers, rag pickers, vendors and
beggars are some examples of poor and vulnerable groups in urban areas. The poor people
possess few assets and reside in kutcha hutments with walls made of baked mud and roofs
made of grass, thatch, bamboo and wood. The poorest of them do not even have such
dwellings. In rural areas many of them are landless.

Starvation and hunger are the key features of the poorest households. The poor lack
basic literacy and skills and hence have very limited economic opportunities. Poor
people also face unstable employment. Malnutrition is alarmingly high among the poor.
Ill health, disability or serious illness makes them physically weak. They borrow from money
lenders who charge high rates of interest that lead them into chronic indebtedness. The poor
are highly vulnerable. They are not able to negotiate their legal wages from employers and
are exploited. Most poor households have no access to electricity. A large section of poor
people do not even have access to safe drinking water. There is evidence of extreme
gender inequality in the participation of gainful employment, education and in
decision-making within the family. Poor women receive less care on their way to
motherhood. Their children are less likely to survive or be born healthy.

Economists identify the poor on the basis of their occupation and ownership of assets.
They state that the rural poor work mainly as landless agricultural labourers, cultivators with
very small landholdings, landless labourers who are engaged in a variety of non-agricultural
jobs and tenant cultivators with small land holdings.

The urban poor are largely the overflow of the rural poor who have migrated to urban areas
in search of alternative employment and livelihood, labourers who do a variety of casual jobs
and the self-employed who sell a variety of things on roadsides and are engaged in various
activities.

Poverty is hunger. Poverty is being sick and not being able to see a doctor. Poverty is not
being able to go to school and not knowing how to read. Poverty is not having a job. Poverty
is fear for the future, having food once in a day. Poverty is losing a child to illness, brought
about by unclear water. Poverty is powerlessness, lack of representation and freedom.

HOW ARE POOR PEOPLE IDENTIFIED?

If India is to solve the problem of poverty, it has to find viable and sustainable strategies to
address the causes of poverty and design schemes to help the poor out of their situation.
However, for these schemes to be implemented, the government needs to be able to
identify who the poor are.

Categorising Poverty: In one such way people who are always poor and those who are
usually poor but who may sometimes have a little more money (example: casual workers)
are grouped together as the chronic poor. Another group are the churning poor who
regularly move in and out of poverty (example: small farmers and seasonal workers) and
the occasionally poor who are rich most of the time but may sometimes have a patch
of bad luck. They are called the transient poor.

The Poverty Line : One way is to determine it by the monetary value (per capita
expenditure) of the minimum calorie intake that was estimated at 2,400 calories for a
rural person and 2,100 for a person in the urban area. Based on this, in 2009-10, the
poverty line was defined for rural areas as consumption worth Rs 673 per person a month
and for urban areas it was Rs 860. This mechanism is helpful in identifying the poor as a
group to be taken care of by the government, but it would be difficult to identify who among
the poor need help the most.

There are many factors, other than income and assets, which are associated with
poverty; for instance, the accessibility to basic education, health care, drinking water
and sanitation.

The existing mechanism for determining the Poverty Line also does not take into
consideration social factors that trigger and perpetuate poverty such as illiteracy, ill
health, lack of access to resources, discrimination or lack of civil and political
freedoms.

The aim of poverty alleviation schemes should be to improve human lives by

expanding the range of things that a person could be and could do, such as to be
healthy and well-nourished, to be knowledgeable and participate in the life of a
community.

In 1973-74, more than 320 million people were below the poverty line. In 2011-12, this
number came down to about 270 million.

WHAT CAUSES POVERTY?

The causes of poverty lie in the institutional and social factors that mark the life of the
poor. The poor are deprived of quality education and unable to acquire skills which
fetch better incomes. Also access to health care is denied to the poor. The main victims
of caste, religious and other discriminatory practices are poor.

These can be caused as a result of (i) social, economic and political inequality (ii)
social exclusion (iii) unemployment (iv) indebtedness (v) unequal distribution of
wealth.
Poverty is also explained by general, economy-wide problems, such as (i) low capital
formation (ii) lack of infrastructure (iii) lack of demand (iv) pressure of population (v)
lack of social/ welfare nets.

The British Raj impoverished millions of people in India. Our natural resources were
plundered, our industries worked to produce goods at low prices for the British and our food
grains were exported. Many died due to famine and hunger.

Even today agriculture is the principal means of livelihood and land is the primary asset of
rural people; ownership of land is an important determinant of material well-being.

Since independence, the government has attempted to redistribute land and has taken land
from those who have large amounts to distribute it to those who do not have any land, but
work on the land as wage labourers.

However, this move was successful only to a limited extent as large sections of agricultural
workers were not able to farm the small holdings that they now possessed as they did not
have either money (assets) or skills to make the land productive and the land holdings were
too small to be viable. Also most of the Indian states failed to implement land redistribution
policies.

With the rapid growth of population and without alternative sources of employment, the
per-head availability of land for cultivation has steadily declined leading to fragmentation of
land holdings. Farmers committing suicide due to their inability to pay back the loans that
they have taken for cultivation.

Most members of scheduled castes and scheduled tribes are not able to participate in the
emerging employment opportunities in different sectors of the urban and rural economy as
they do not have the necessary knowledge and skills to do so.
The urban poor are either unemployed or intermittently employed as casual labourers.
Casual labourers are among the most vulnerable in society as they have no job
security, no assets, limited skills, sparse opportunities and no surplus to sustain them.

Poverty is, therefore, also closely related to the nature of employment. Unemployment
or underemployment and the casual and intermittent nature of work in both rural and
urban areas that compels indebtedness, in turn, reinforces poverty. Indebtedness is one
of the significant factors of poverty.

A steep rise in the price of food grains and other essential goods, at a rate higher than
the price of luxury goods, further intensifies the hardship and deprivation of lower
income groups. The unequal distribution of income and assets has also led to the
persistence of poverty in India.

Over the years, the gap between the rich and the poor in India has widened. Poverty is a
multi-dimensional challenge for India that needs to be addressed on a war footing.

POLICIES AND PROGRAMMES TOWARDS POVERTY ALLEVIATION

The Indian Constitution and five year plans state social justice as the primary objective of
the developmental strategies of the government. To quote the First Five Year Plan
(1951-56), “the urge to bring economic and social change under present conditions
comes from the fact of poverty and inequalities in income, wealth and opportunity”.

The government’s approach to poverty reduction was of three dimensions.

● The first one is a growth oriented approach. It is based on the expectation that the
effects of economic growth — rapid increase in gross domestic product and per
capita income — would spread to all sections of society and will trickle down
to the poor sections also. This was the major focus of planning in the 1950s and
early 1960s. It was felt that rapid industrial development and transformation of
agriculture through green revolution in select regions would benefit the
underdeveloped regions and the more backward sections of the community. the
 overall growth and growth of agriculture and industry have not been
impressive. Population growth has resulted in a very low growth in per capita
incomes. The gap between poor and rich has actually widened. The Green
Revolution exacerbated the disparities regionally and between large and small
farmers. There was unwillingness and inability to redistribute land.

● While looking for alternatives to specifically address the poor, policy makers
started thinking that incomes and employment for the poor could be raised
through the creation of additional assets and by means of work generation.
This could be achieved through specific poverty alleviation programmes. This
second approach has been initiated from the Third Five Year Plan (1961-66) and
progressively enlarged since then. One of the noted programmes initiated in the
1970s was Food for Work.

● Expanding self-employment programmes and wage employment programmes

are being considered as the major ways of addressing poverty. Examples of
self-employment programmes are Rural Employment Generation Programme
(REGP), Prime Minister’s Rozgar Yojana (PMRY). The educated unemployed
from low-income families in rural and urban areas can get financial help to set
up any kind of enterprise that generates employment under PMRY.

● Earlier, under self-employment programmes, financial assistance was given to

families or individuals. Since the 1990s, this approach has been changed. Now
those who wish to benefit from these programmes are encouraged to form
self-help groups. through banks, the government provides partial financial
assistance to SHGs which then decide whom the loan is to be given to for self
employment activities. NRLM & NULM

● The government has a variety of programmes to generate wage employment for the
poor unskilled people living in rural areas. - MGNREGA(to provide guaranteed wage
employment to every rural household whose adult volunteer is to do unskilled manual
work for a minimum of 100 days in a year. )

● The third approach to addressing poverty is to provide minimum basic amenities

to the people. India was among the pioneers in the world to envisage that through
 public expenditure on social consumption needs — provision of food grains at
subsidised rates, education, health, water supply and sanitation—people’s living
standard could be improved. Programmes under this approach are expected to
supplement the consumption of the poor, create employment opportunities
and bring about improvements in health and education.

● One can trace this approach from the Fifth Five Year Plan, “even with expanded
employment opportunities, the poor will not be able to buy for themselves all the
essential goods and services. They have to be supplemented up to at least certain
minimum standards by social consumption and investment in the form of essential
food grains, education, health, nutrition, drinking water, housing, communications and
electricity.”

● Three major programmes that aim at improving the food and nutritional status
of the poor are Public Distribution System, Integrated Child Development
Scheme and Midday Meal Scheme. Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana,
Pradhan Mantri Gramodaya Yojana, Valmiki Ambedkar Awas Yojana are also
attempts in the same direction. It may be essential to briefly state that India has
achieved satisfactory progress in many aspects.

● The government also has a variety of other social security programmes to help a
few specific groups. National Social Assistance Programme(Old Age, Destitute,
Widows)

● The government has also introduced a few schemes to provide health insurance
to poor people.

POVERTY ALLEVIATION PROGRAMMES — A CRITICAL ASSESSMENT

● Despite various strategies to alleviate poverty, hunger, malnourishment, illiteracy and

lack of basic amenities continue to be a common feature in many parts of India.
Though the policy towards poverty alleviation has evolved in a progressive manner,
over the last five and a half decades, it has not undergone any radical transformation.
 ● However, none resulted in any radical change in the ownership of assets,
process of production and improvement of basic amenities to the needy.
Scholars, while assessing these programmes, state three major areas of concern
which prevent their successful implementation.

● Due to unequal distribution of land and other assets, the benefits from direct
poverty alleviation programmes have been appropriated by the non-poor.
Compared to the magnitude of poverty, the amount of resources allocated for
these programmes is not sufficient.

● Moreover, these programmes depend mainly on government and bank officials for
their implementation. Since such officials are ill motivated, inadequately trained,
corruption prone and vulnerable to pressure from a variety of local elites, the
resources are inefficiently used and wasted.

● There is also non-participation of local level institutions in programme

implementation.

● Government policies have also failed to address the vast majority of vulnerable
people who are living on or just above the poverty line. It also reveals that high
growth alone is not sufficient to reduce poverty. Without the active participation of
the poor, successful implementation of any programme is not possible.

● Poverty can effectively be eradicated only when the poor start contributing to
growth by their active involvement in the growth process. This is possible
through a process of social mobilisation, encouraging poor people to
participate and get them empowered. This will also help create employment
opportunities which may lead to increase in levels of income, skill
development, health and literacy. Moreover, it is necessary to identify poverty
stricken areas and provide infrastructure such as schools, roads, power, telecom,
IT services, training institutions etc.

Conclusion
We have travelled about six decades since independence. The objective of all our policies
had been stated as promoting rapid and balanced economic development with equality and
social justice. Poverty alleviation has always been accepted as one of India’s main
challenges by the policy makers, regardless of which government was in power. The
absolute number of poor in the country has gone down and some states have less
proportion of poor than even the national average. Yet, critics point out that even though
vast resources have been allocated and spent, we are still far from reaching the goal.
There is improvement in terms of per capita income and average standard of living; some
progress towards meeting the basic needs has been made. But when compared to the
progress made by many other countries, our performance has not been impressive.
Moreover, the fruits of development have not reached all sections of the population. Some
sections of people, some sectors of the economy, some regions of the country can compete
even with developed countries in terms of social and economic development, yet, there are
many others who have not been able to come out of the vicious circle of poverty.
Economy is doing fine but…

A dignitary visiting Brazil in 1971 asked its head of state Emilio Medicin about the
economic situation of the country to which he replied , ‘The economy is doing fine, but the
people are not.’ This captures the paradox of growth that does not create employment
and reduces poverty. The close interrelationship between growth, employment and
poverty has long been a matter of debate and dispute among economists. The ‘trickle
down’ theory of economic growth has long lost its relevance and it is now well
recognized that growth may not be enough to achieve the objectives of employment and
reduction of poverty. The impact of growth on employment and poverty depends upon a
multitude of factors and the proper dynamics of the relationship between these three goals
needs to be understood in a broader context.

How far growth will impact poverty depends upon its employment generating
capacity? In the case of India, despite having a high overall growth rate, the extent and
quality of employment generation has been low. The employment generation has mostly
come from the low productivity informal sector. According to one estimate between
1999-2000 to 2009-2010, 63 million workers were added to the workforce out of which
70 per cent were added in the unorganised sector and the rest into the organised
sector. This is linked to the disproportionate increase in the contribution of the services
sector in the economy from 41 per cent of GDP in 1990–91 to 64.8 percent in 2012–13.
However, the share of services in employment is less than 30 per cent. On the other
hand in 2011- 12, manufacturing contributed 16 per cent to the GDP and its share in
aggregate employment was close to 13 per cent.

In terms of the economic policy for high employment growth, the experience of some of the
fast growing countries of SouthEast Asia could be useful. These countries have made
investments in labour intensive industries. Special attention was paid to the export
oriented industries which had a high labour intensity. In the entire process, agriculture
was also given incentives to have better terms of trade and promote non-farm agricultural
activities. Recent experience of high current account deficit and depreciation of rupee also
points to the need to orient our economic policies towards incentivising manufacturing and
improving exports by leveraging our abundant labour force. Employment is thus the
crucial link between growth and reduction in poverty. There is a strong case for a big
push to the manufacturing sector for generating employment through its stronger
backward linkages.

Despite controversies and arguments against the method used for the estimation of poverty,
there are strong indicators that suggest a clear trend in the reduction of poverty in India. If
we take two time periods 1993-94 to 2004-05 and 2004-05 to 2011-12, per capita income
growth (up from 4.4 per cent to 6.9 per cent) , real wages of casual workers (increased from
3.1 per cent to 6.5 per cent) and agricultural output growth (rose from 2.5 per cent to 3.9 per
cent ) between the two periods have shown clear upward trend. It is obvious that higher
expenditure under schemes like MGNREGA and PDS has also contributed in achieving this.

Indeed, poverty alleviation, employment, equitable income distribution across social

classes and regions remain crucial goals of economic policy in India. The growth must be
broad based to foster a truly 'democratised market economy'. Investment in human
capital, so that people can take advantage of the opportunities offered by the market,
becomes essential in such a framework. Transfer of resources to the vulnerable sections of
society through governmental schemes are needed but they have to be carefully designed
keeping in mind their complex effect on the market for food and labour and on the incentive
structure of the economy as a whole. The major challenge lies in making the productive
process more widely and equitably distributed among people. After all, as Amartya Sen has
said, growth is a means towards a valuable human end and not an end in itself. Only
then will the people also be fine when the economy is doing fine.
What makes the Indian society unique in sustaining its culture? Discuss.

The notion of accommodation and assimilation has been the key feature of Indian
society. Since ancient times, India has accommodated different elements of society
without letting them lose their separate identity as Jawahar Lal Nehru writes in The
Discovery of India- Indian Society and Culture “is like some ancient palimpsest on
which layer upon layer of thought and reverie had been inscribed, and yet no
succeeding layer had completely hidden or erased what had been written
previously”. In course of time, India has evolved its own culture which is eclectic,
externally receptive and heterogeneous. The essence of Indian society lies in
harbouring diverse and distinct identities, ethnicities, languages, religions and
culinary preferences. History stands witness to the fact that the societies that have
struggled to hold differences were shattered in such an attempt.

However, Indian society succeeded and is unique because of its various

peculiarities:

● A Cosmic Vision: The framework of Indian culture places human beings in the
centre of the universe, as a divine creation-which celebrates Individuality and
differences of opinion in the society.

● Sense of Harmony: Indian philosophy and culture tries to achieve an innate

harmony and order in the society.

● Tolerance: In India, tolerance and liberalism is found for all religions, castes,
communities, etc. Indian society accepted and respected Shaka, Huna,
Scythians , Muslim, Christian,jews and Zoroastrians. Rulers like Ashoka, Akbar
have patronized various religions and ensured that there is peaceful
co-existence of religions.

● Continuity and Stability: The light of ancient Indian culture life is yet glowing.
Many invasions occurred, many rulers changed, many laws were passed but
even today, the traditional institutions, religion, epics, literature, philosophy,
traditions, etc. are alive.

● Adaptability: Adaptability is the process of changing according to time, place

and period. Indian society has shown fluidity and has adjusted itself with
changing times.

● Unity in diversity: Despite inherent difference Indian society celebrates unity

in diversity which reflects in modern India’s founding principles and
constitutional ideals.
In recent times, Indian society has seen a surge on multiple divisive issues like
communalism, casteism, economic disparity and ethnic violence, which pose a
serious challenge to the time- tested ethos of our society.

Despite this, India remains a diverse country, a bewildering mosaic of communities

of all kinds; our peculiar societal genius is to fashion a form of coexistence where
diversity can flourish and find its place. Principle of Sarva Dharma Sambhava (equal
respect for all religions) is rooted in India’s tradition and culture. Vasudhaiva
Kutumbakam

“Caste system is assuming new identities and associational forms. Hence, the
caste system cannot be eradicated in India”. Comment.

Empowering women is the key to controlling population growth." Discuss.

An essential condition to eradicate poverty is to liberate the poor from the process
of deprivation." Substantiate this statement with suitable examples.

Poverty is rooted in the underlying structural inequities in the economy and the
inherent disadvantages arising out of social impediments such as lack of education,
poor health etc. Therefore, to eradicate poverty, it is essential to liberate the poor
from the process of deprivation. This can be done by providing them education,
equipping them with skills to sustain a livelihood and providing them health care
services to make them physically fit also to work. At the same time, to absorb them
into the labour force, there has to be an adequate number of job
opportunities—without which all the efforts will be a waste.

In Amartya Sen’s capability approach, development is seen as a process of

enhancing people’s capabilities by expanding their real freedoms. The capability to
function effectively is what matters the most and it goes well beyond availability of
commodities. In the capability approach, poverty is a situation where people
lack the most basic capabilities to lead a reasonable life.

Rather than goods and resources (the inputs), the focus of Sen’s
capability approach is people and their capabilities (the end-results). It
also provides an alternative and more comprehensive perspective on the issues like
poverty, inequality, gender bias, and social exclusion that are hardly touched by the
economic perspective. Sen’s approach is both comprehensive and flexible
and is people centric. Now people are no more robotic producers and consumers.
If the GDP growth model dis-empowers them, the capabilities approach makes their
empowerment the central issue.
Amartya Sen’s capabilities approach revolves around “people” seen as human being
with emotional and psychological demands; it sees development as expansion
of people’s capabilities – it is an enabling (empowering) preposition. It
aims to enhance people’s well-being by expanding their capabilities
which is connected to freedom of choices.

In the capabilities paradigm, poverty is understood as deprivation of basic

capabilities. People may get deprived of such capabilities in several ways; for
example, ignorance, oppressive state policies, lack of financial resources,
ill health, lack of proper education, sudden accidents and so on. The scope
of this approach is quite vast; all factors that can potentially affect people’s
capabilities are relevant for consideration. Included in the domain of capability
theory are all possible factors – social and political processes, gender,
inequality, discrimination of all types, social exclusion, disability,
environmental conditions, personal and psychological factors – that can
possibly influence human capabilities, which is the prime measure of human
well-being. In this sense, it is a complete human development model. The
capability approach focuses on two things, freedoms to achieve and the
capabilities to function.

Capabilities are substantive freedoms a person enjoys to lead the kind of

life he has reason to value. By investing in people, we enable growth and
empower them to pursue many different life paths, thus developing different life
capabilities.

The most basic capabilities for human developments are : to lead long and
healthy lives, to be knowledgeable, to have access to the resources and
social services needed for a decent standard of living and to be able to
participate in the life of the community.

The distinction between functionings and capabilities is that between the realized
and the potentially possible, in other words, between achievements, on the one hand,
and freedoms or opportunities, on the other. Capabilities are a person’s real
freedoms or opportunities to achieve functionings. For example, while travelling is a
functioning, the real opportunity to travel is the corresponding capability.

In the context of the diversity of India, can it be said that the regions form cultural
units rather than the States? Give reasons with examples for your view point.

What are the two major legal initiatives by the State since Independence addressing
discrimination against Scheduled Tribes (STs)?

Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities), 2015 and

Panchayat (Extension to the Scheduled Areas), Act, 1996.
The spirit of tolerance and love is not only an interesting feature of Indian society
from very early times, but it is also playing an important part at the present.
Elaborate.

What is the basis of regionalism? Is it that unequal distribution of benefits of

development on regional basis eventually promotes regionalism? Substantiate your
answer.

GLOBAL HUNGER INDEX 2020

● As per Global hunger Index (GHI) report 2020, India has ranked 94 out of 107
countries.

● In terms of overall undernourishment, 14% of India’s population does not get

enough calories.

○ Almost 35% of Indian children are stunted.

○ 17.3% of Indian children under five are wasted.

○ Under 5 mortality rate is at 3.7%.

● Food insecurity, poor sanitation, inadequate housing, limited access to

healthcare — all result in maternal distress, that leads to the kind of slow,
chronic wasting seen in Indian children.

About Global Hunger Index

● published by Concern Worldwide (international humanitarian organization)

and Welthungerhilfe (private aid organisations in Germany).

● based on the values of 4 component indicators:

○ Undernourishment -share of the population with insufficient caloric

intake. Inadequate food supply

○ Child wasting - share of children under age 5 who have low weight for
their height. Child particularly vulnerable to nutritional deficiencies

○ Child stunting - share of children under age 5 who have low height for
their age.

○ Under 5 Child mortality - mortality rate of children under age 5. Most

serious consequences of hunger
Status of Hunger and Malnutrition in India

● The Comprehensive National Nutrition Survey compiled in 2017-18 stated that

based on the sample data, 36% of under five years of age are stunted —low
height for age, 29% are affected from Wasting—low weight for height, and 45%
are underweight—low weight for age.

Impact of Malnourishment

● higher risk for impaired growth, low immunity, poor mental development, and
mortality.

● Conditions of overweight and obesity pose greater risks for

noncommunicable diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease

● Micronutrient deficiencies are an important cause of morbidity and mortality

● affects psychomotor and brain development; causes weakness, fatigue and

poor productivity; and predisposes individuals to infections.

Related Concepts

● (FAO) defines food deprivation, or undernourishment or hunger, as the

consumption of too few calories to provide the minimum amount of dietary
energy that each individual requires to live a healthy and productive life.

● Undernutrition goes beyond calories and signifies deficiencies in any or all of

the following: energy, protein, and/ or essential vitamins and minerals. result
of inadequate intake of food in terms of either quantity or quality, poor
utilization of nutrients due to infections or other illnesses, or a combination of
these factors.

● Malnutrition refers more broadly to both undernutrition (problems caused by

deficiencies) and (problems caused by unbalanced diets, such as consuming
too many calories in relation to requirements, leading to obesity.

● Anemia is a condition in which the number of red blood cells or their

oxygen-carrying capacity is insufficient to meet the body’s physiological
requirements, which vary by age, sex, altitude, smoking habits, and during
pregnancy.

Steps taken by the Government to ensure nutritional security

 ● POSHAN Abhiyaan: multi-ministerial convergence mission with the vision to
ensure attainment of malnutrition free India by 2022 in a phased manner

● Mid-day meals in primary and upper primary schools, along with anganwadis

● FSSAI - Fortification of food, Eat India Right Movement

● Anemia Mukt Bharat strategy

● Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) Scheme

Challenges in tackling Malnourishment in India

● Weak Implementation of schemes: Top-down approach, and poor

implementation processes, lack of effective monitoring, and siloed
approaches of government schemes in tackling malnutrition (missing
convergence) often result in poor nutrition indices.

● Food wastage: India wastes about 7% of its total annual food production and
almost 30% of the fruits and vegetables because of inadequate warehousing
facilities and cold storages.

● Shifts in diet and lifestyle patterns: As market exposure increases, foods and
drinks high in fat, sugar and salt

● Inclusion and Exclusion errors in Targeted PDS

● Decreasing productivity of agriculture, exacerbated by erratic weather due to

global warming and climate change

● Poor Condition of farmers

● Deprivation in society, caused by class, caste and gender inequity

Way forward

● to track and tackle hunger, governments must produce data that are timely,
comprehensive, and disaggregated by income, subnational location, and
gender.

● Enhance productivity of agriculture and condition of farmers

● Design and development of more efficient integrated systems of food

production, processing, preservation and distribution to suit the changing
lifestyle of country’s population.
 ● Remove inequality in society and strengthen grassroot democracy in society

● Implementation of welfare programmes as an entitlement based and bottom

up approach

Record foodgrain exports amid hunger, says group

● The record export of foodgrains at a time of widespread hunger and distress

due to COVID­19 exposes “the government’s apathy towards the people”,
according to the Right to Food Campaign.

● called for the universalisation of the public distribution system (PDS) for at
least six months, noting that the quantity of exported grain could have been
used to provide 25 crore people with rations for a year.

● Foodgrain stocks in FCI’s warehouses stand at a record high of 100 million

tonnes.
Anganwadi workers struggle with Centre’s order on ‘Poshan’

● after a government order threatened them with a pay cut if they did not
download the government’s mobile application called ‘Poshan Tracker’ to
record delivery of services by them.

● The application and the use of technology for real time growth monitoring and
tracking of beneficiaries is the mainstay of the government’s Poshan
Abhiyaan, which aims to improve nutritional outcomes for children, pregnant
women and lactating mothers.

● We are not opposed to the Poshan Tracker, but we need a mobile phone,
expenses for recharge as well as training to use smartphones as the
application is compatible with mobile phones that are Android 6 or above.

● Many anganwadi centres are situated in remote locations and often don’t have
Internet connectivity.